paserel Wie laanagEeine pba tien ae eie gore sayapicee 


etnies 
be Soe nee pee 
et 9 


syhees ce 7 
em neris Voapatmeregeiee 
=. eer saind aot Ee meer aes a SE se 

esac me 5 Sat erarr irs eerste oe o ea : = : st . ee 
=: ayeferreesy oe reaa ee e 


paper err 
= 


ese Sees 
==: - 
: = 


: Tigarcetpase 
BE serio een : 
oe asp eto meets 





le er ree 









FEB 28 1989 


4 
> ¢ 
HEOLOgICAL SEWED 


DV 
634 
iF 44 
425° 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/christianincountOOfelt 


7 ii A) ae, 


j : i me . -y ai i ' o / eS 





i 


aa 


FE a eg ee 








PLILPT ped ‘ aS 

Hae! Li ps a fa bik 6) 29" AA "e) 

Whe B Wks YM ION ae” 

MAME Wis Wy UY i a 
iy if t/ Ly Fhe 


By RALPH A. FELTON 








PROPERTY OF 


DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 


RURAL LIFE SERIES 


THE BIBLE AND RURAL LIFE 
(IN PREPARATION) 


THE COUNTRY CHURCH AND ITS PROGRAM 
ROADMAN 


A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 
FELTON 


THE CHRISTIAN AND RURAL INSTITUTIONS 
(IN PREPARATION) 





RURAL LIFE SERIES 


HENRY H. MEYER, Editor 
WADE CRAWFORD BARCLAY, Associate Editor 


A CHRISTIAN IN THE 
COUNTRYSIDE 


By ve 
RALPH A. FELTON 


Approved by the Committee on Curriculum 
of the Board of Sunday Schools of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church 









JAN 2% 1989 





A ane 
“EoLogicay sews 


THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 


Copyright, 1925, by 
RALPH A. FELTON 


All rights reserved, including that of translation into 
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian 


Printed in the United States of America 


The Bible text used in this volume is taken from the American Standard 
Edition of the Revised Bible, Copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, and is 
used by permission. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER ‘ PAGER 
ENTRODUOTION] 5. Safisie lade slele aie bins ela ihininn wierele wale one Cay 

So MIM LIAY RELIGION Us ONL NUH evn Ay 9 

II. NEIGHBORHOOD GATHERINGS. .............000c0ceees 18 
TAT APUR CICK VINEIGHBORS 00:0 Sic Wes iusals ge Glo ain dealin wip ace lene 29 
VOU OR, POMES way EME NOL Te Dials eM Rd Wuyi OSL ly 37 
eNO) iris WRCHILD ERIN: ity LOE Me RICE ONT AN Date ete AML carats gad 47 
Vids FARM 'DUGINHSEs ou AOS Ee eli oak Petes Wien ead eek 56 
WELT EURLAGIONCIN, £ RACTION fais) ytouciae ecaictuclth wet blste siaiabe whe 67 
ES OR VEC SUNT eee se ye hin IVS Lletal clas bob vemyraleeetaiae 76 
PRU AUREL OWS ckseko Uist cic eli ate wens kL SUN SLs on Nace. UME 85 
RL MUR OCHOOLG. Oita echo mere Viethen acre re Ne ASIAN Teh i 94 
XI. Cuurcues WORKING TOGETHER............-.e0e000- 103 
IA RM RU RCES See a a yihiie tiaeild Sislee oe tonik alam aye 114 


wise 


Py 


a } ef iy i bq aE ; 


We oe eye an 
Che Rea ees 


J Ue ih a 





INTRODUCTION 


A Christian in the Countryside is one of a series of 
brief, elective study courses for adult classes in rural Sun- 
day schools. ‘Titles in this series—The Rural Life Series 
—are listed on a preceding page. The suggestion is made 
that the textbooks shall be studied by classes in the order 
of titles in this list. 

The theory that has given rise to this series of elective 
study courses is that the country church, as one of the 
most important of the religious and social institutions of 
our nation, has problems that are peculiar to itself. If it 
is to survive permanently and fulfill its mission these 
problems must be studied, and solutions sought and found, 
by the men and women who constitute the church. It is 
not enough for the pastor to be aware of these problems, 
study them and preach about them. The men and women 
who in themselves are the church must be thoroughly 
cognizant of them. It is not sufficient for the congrega- 
tion to hear of them by the hearing of the ear. They must 
do more than hear. They must hear about them, read 
about them, think about them, discuss them, and accom- 
plish their solution. The agency for this undertaking is 
ready at hand in the adult class. 

The use of such a series of study courses involves for 
most adult classes a marked change of procedure. These 
courses are intended for use at the Sunday-school hour, for 
the time being taking the place of the Uniform Lessons, 
An objection may be anticipated from some on the ground 
that these special courses are not Bible study courses. A 
thorough, impartial examination of the material will effec- 
tively answer this objection, for these courses are in a very 
real and vital sense Bible study. They involve the applica- 
tion of Christian ideals and principles, derived from the 
Scriptures, to present-day problems of living in rural com- 
munities. They bring the Bible out of the past into the 
present and seek to make its Vina live in to-day’s life. 


8 INTRODUCTION 


They seek te reproduce in the men and women of our 
rural communities the type of religious experience which 
resulted in the early Christian Church giving to the world 
personalities of power—men and women who revealed by 
their everyday lives that they had been with Jesus and 
learned of him—together with those new social ideals 
which remade civilization. These courses are not intended 
to displace the Bible from the adult class. They are 
intended to bring about a new and more effective kind of 
Bible study. 

It is hoped also that these courses will find other and 
wider uses. Wherever groups of men and women gather 
for the consideration of problems involved in the better- 
ment of life in village and countryside they will, we 
believe, be found serviceable. 

THE Epirors. 


CHAPTER I 
WEEK-DAY RELIGION 


Wuo Is My NEIGHBOR? 


A group of neighbors were comfortably seated in a 
community hall one afternoon to listen to a speaker dis- 
cuss “Community Welfare.” As this out-of-town guest 
was being introduced, and everyone present was trying to 
look pleased, a small boy rushed through the door and 
announced that a neighbor’s house a half mile up the hill 
was on fire. Leaving the speaker standing in the middle 
of the floor making his introductory remarks, the entire 
audience rushed up the hill in buggies and autos and on 
foot to put out the fire. After it was out, and the speech 
made, the writer, who happened to be the speaker that day, 
had a chance to think about this question of neighborli- 
ness. That group of people were neighbors of the man 
whose house was on fire, not simply because they lived near 
him, nor because they had built a neighborhood house in 
which to hold such community meetings, but because they 
helped him save his home. When a man’s house is on fire, 
a pail of water is worth more than a lecture on neighbor- 
liness or more than resolutions of sympathy. 

A part of Jesus’ great task was to convince the religious 
leaders of his day that the law of love transcends mere 
morality and orthodoxy, that service is nearer the heart 
of the Father than formal worship and that everyday reli- 
gion is the great need of the world. 


ScRIPTURE LESSON 
Luke 10. 25-37. 


25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and made trial of 
him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 
26 And he said unto him, What is written in the law? how 
readest thou? 27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neigh- 


9 


10 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


bor as thyself. 28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered 
right: this do, and thou shalt live. 29 But he, desiring to 
justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? 30 
Jesus made answer and said, A certain man was going down 
from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who 
both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half 
dead. 31 And by chance a certain priest was going down that 
way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 
32 And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the 
place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a 
certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and 
when he saw him, he was moved with compassion, 34 and 
came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil 
and wine; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him 
to an inn, and took care of him. 35 And on the morrow he 
took out two shillings, and gave them to the host, and said, 
Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, 
when I come back again, will repay thee. 36 Which of these 
three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor unto him that fell among 
the robbers? 387 And he said, He that showed mercy on him. 
And Jesus said unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. 


Tre Busy JErR1IcHo Roap 


The priest and the Levite had doubtless attended faith- 
fully all the services in the Jerusalem Temple on the 
preceding Sabbath. ‘They may have been carrying a mis- 
sionary message of good will to the villagers of Jericho. 
The road was hot and dusty, lonesome and dangerous. As 
religious leaders they may have thought they were too 
valuable to society to take any chances. With the law in 
one hand and the prophets in the other they hurried on, 
passing a man in need. Through this parable Jesus points 
out a cardinal principle of his gospel—Gwve loving service 
gladly to those in need near at hand. Christian living is 
not at the other end of the Jericho road; it is in front of 
us, around us, in all our daily work. Putting the spirit 
of Christ into all our social contacts, Christianizing our 
week-day activities, is carrying out the command of our 
Lord when he said, “Go, and do thou likewise.” 


CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN RurRAL LIFE 


Nowhere do we see the practices of the good Samaritan 
better illustrated than among neighbors in a rural com- 
munity. A New York farmer was taken sick and had to 


WEEK-DAY RELIGION i! 


stay in bed, neglecting his work. There was no resident 
minister there to organize any helpful activities. One day 
ten men with teams and two with tractors drove on the 
sick man’s farm and plowed his fields. All day long as 
these neighbors went round and round those furrows they 
were following in the footsteps of the man in the parable 
who lost a day on his homeward journey to Samaria. This 
“Jericho Road religion” is quite common in this New York 
community. On one of the farms pure-bred sheep, cattle, 
and poultry are raised and exhibited at county fairs. A 
twelve-year-old daughter in this home went along with 
her parents to these fairs with her six Shetland ponies and 
won prizes amounting to three hundred dollars. When 
told she could do as she pleased with her money she decided 
to give it all to a nearby home for crippled children. ‘This 
twelve-year-old farm girl who gave all her summer’s earn- 
ings in this way was carrying on the mission of Jesus 
announced in his home synagogue to his neighbors in 
Nazareth and practiced as he “went about in all... 
Galilee.” 

Preventing sickness is even more Christian than nursing 
the sick. A pastor who puts on a health campaign is labor- 
ing in the spirit of his Lord, who said he “came that they 
may have life,” just as much as or more than when he is 
“making sick calls.” And still there are some good Chris- 
tian workers who do not see that everyday religion includes 
the prevention of disease. One woman was faithfully drill- 
ing her Sunday-school class for a Christmas program. 
Some of her children became exposed to the measles. Not 
wanting to “spoil the Christmas services,’ she kept up 
her practice until she had spread the disease throughout 
the community. Reciting the story of Jesus’ birth meant 
more to this woman than putting into practice the spirit 
of his life. Not “back to Christ,” let us say, but ‘‘for- 
ward with Christ”—to new ways of realizing his ideals in 
everyday living. 


Retiaion In Our Homes 


We preach and profess our religion at church and prac- 
tice it at home. We may spend five hours a week in church 


12 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


but we spend a hundred at home. I may get up late Sun- 
day morning, lose my temper while milking the cows, 
scold the children at the breakfast table, spend more time 
complaining about being late to church than in helping 
get the children ready, then finally rush into my pew and 
bow my head to meet my Lord, only to find I parted from 
him at home. 

The most interesting challenge to our religious life 
to-day is to make it an everyday affair. Is our religion 
strong enough to stay with us while we’re breaking a colt? 
When the children are cross, when the water bucket gets 
empty, when the cake falls, or the clothesline breaks, we 
need a very practical religion. Blessed is the farmer who, 
when plowing his field, understands that he is cooperating 
with God to feed the world. When sowing his seed he 
recognizes that it is God’s law that he is obeying and 
later he sees God’s hand in the miracle of harvest. When 
he sits down to his table with his family, his grace is not 
a perfunctory recital of a few sentences he learned when 
he was a child, but a new, heartfelt expression of his daily 
thanks to the Giver of every good gift. Happy is that 
mother who finds an opportunity in the children’s hundred 
daily questions to teach them the principles of Christian 
living. God bless our home not because we hang that 
motto on our walls, but because our family relationships 
are Christian. 


A house is built of wood and stone, of posts and sills and piers 
But a home is built of loving deeds that last a thousand years. 


RELIGION IN Our Dartty LIFE 


A great agricultural leader recently left his position in 
his State College of Agriculture to live in his old home and 
manage his farm. While at the college he attended a city 
‘church. When he went back to his country church again 
he said he was surprised to find how little relation there 
was between the religion discussed in that church and the 
daily life of the farm people. If this situation is gener- 
ally true, it is a great challenge to all Christian farm 
people. We must Christianize our relations with our 
hired hands and our tenants and make them human rela- 


WEEK-DAY RELIGION 13 


tionships as well as economic. Our neighbor from whom 
we borrow and to whom we lend should see a spirit of 
service instead of selfishness in our transactions. 

One day after giving a talk on “Better Homes” a county 
home-demonstration agent was driving past the home of a 
newly arrived immigrant farmer. As she passed his house, 
one of his hens ran in front of her car and was killed. It 
was not her fault, and although she was hurrying to town 
to catch a train she stopped and explained to the new 
Polish family that she would be glad to reimburse them 
for their loss. She was putting into practice what she 
had been talking about in her address. 

A group of eighty farmers and their wives met in their 
church for an institute. They offered a prayer of thank- 
fulness when they began their meal together. When they 
had, finished, the nutrition leader of their home bureau 
talked to them about food values and why this particular 
meal had been planned. Then the group discussed ways 
of improving their school and beautifying their church. 
Community improvement in this case was prompted by a 
religious motive. For an hour the men and women played 
together games that teach teamwork and cooperation. 
Then they discussed a cooperative undertaking relative to 
the marketing of their farm produce. Religion with this 
church is a week-day affair. It is the spirit and the ideal- 
ism that control their daily living. Religion and educa- 
tion are emphasized so much in this parish that when the 
young people are graduated from high school and college 
they come back to these farms to establish their homes and 
to rear their children. This is rural America at its best, 
because here the community life is dominated by Christian 
ideals. 

Let us look at an adjacent community, where idealism 
is lacking. In some ways this second community may be 
more progressive. The houses and barns look prosperous. 
The farmers are thoroughly familiar with improved meth- 
ods of seeding, fertilizing, pruning, testing, and other 
modern agricultural practices. Recently they put on 
what they called a “pure-bred sire campaign.” As a 
result thirty-two out of thirty-four bulls in the neighbor- 
hood are pure-breds. You say, “This is truly a progressive 


14 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


township.” But because they were lacking in Christian 
ideals they soon became embroiled in a neighborhood law- 
suit over one of these animals. 

Our greatest danger in rural America to-day is that 
our progress in religious living may not keep up with our 
advances in economic life. A great leader in one of our 
farm cooperative movements recently said in an address 
regarding cooperation, “This is a question of dollars and 
cents; it is not a question of brotherly love.” His leader- 
ship in the cooperative movement is much like that of a 
captain who starts a ship out to sea without a compass. 
This magnetic needle may seem quiet, small, and insig- 
nificant compared with the buzzing engines, huge steel 
girders, and belching smokestacks; yet it is this little 
needle, pointing faithfully in its one direction, that keeps 
the huge steamer off the rocks. Likewise, Christian ideal- 
ism must point the way through all our stormy seas of 
economic agricultural progress. 


Wuat Is CHRISTIAN IDEALISM ? 


A proper mixture of self-denial and service gives us our 
Christian ideals. These rare qualities are achieved only 
through vital intimacy with the life and teachings of our 
Lord. Hither of these qualities without the other is a 
disappointment. 

Along the very road from Jerusalem to Jericho where 
the good Samaritan personified Jesus’ gospel are situated 
to-day many secluded monasteries. T'o these cloistered 
halls come somber monks captivated by the spirit of sacri- 
fice and self-denial. ‘They repeat prayers, chant hymns, 
and meditate upon the higher life, while the Jericho road 
in front of them remains infested with robbers. Apostolic 
self-denial must be united with twentieth-century service. 
Likewise, we have many splendid service organizations in 
our country communities to-day which are holding meet- 
ings only to quarrel and finally die. They clearly need an 
infusion of humility and self-denial. 

A group of rural women was organized into a home- 
improvement club; but soon after they elected their officers 
and started their program, six of them “pulled off and 


WEEK-DAY RELIGION 15 


organized a club of their own.” They had one of these 
big ideals without the other. 

Two families started a Sunday school and organized 
a church in a commendable eifort to provide religious serv- 
ices for an unchurched neighborhood. Fifty people 
attended the meetings, and religion began to grow in the 
life of this community. Before the year had passed, these 
same two families “fell out” with their neighbors over the 
question of denominational allegiance. The sign they 
painted and nailed on the schoolhouse, bearing the words 
“The Methodist Episcopal Church,” is still there to be 
read by every passer-by; but no one comes to the services. 
Self-denial must be wedded to the spirit of service to 
reproduce Christ’s teachings in our community life. 

At a recent meeting in a church where many sermons 
have been preached, and prayers offered during the last 
seventy-five years, a hundred farm people were gathered 
to discuss their community problems. One man spoke 
on the excessive costs of spraying material for his orchard. 
Another had spent fifty dollars for feed and sold sixty- 
nine dollars’ worth of milk during the past month, thus 
receiving only nineteen dollars for his labor. A mother 
spoke of the attractions and dangers to their young peo- 
ple who had to go out of the community for all of their 
social life. ‘There were so many local economic and 
social problems it seemed best to organize a community 
club; but from among all these veteran church members 
none could be found who was willing to give any time to 
becoming an officer in such an organization. Neither the 
spirit of self-denial nor the spirit of service had per- 
meated that orthodox congregation. 

Here is another community in need of this week-day 
religion. A lecture room was built in a Presbyterian 
church in a prosperous agricultural community. As a 
result of addresses by the outside speakers who were 
brought here to lecture, the boys in the neighborhood 
petitioned the church officials for the use of the hall for 
games. They were told by the officials to “go build a hall 
of their own.” 

“They might knock the plaster off the church,” said one 
of the leading members. 


16 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


“After the boys used the room, we would not want to 
sit down on the chairs with our good clothes on,” protested 
one woman. ‘The boys then wrote out a petition and sent 
it to the grange, asking for the use of their hall. These 
same church members belonged to the grange also. The 
debate over the petition was sharp. The result was that 
the grange agreed to let the boys have the hall but to 
charge them ten dollars a night. Of course, the boys could 
not pay this much, and the matter was dropped. 

These same grange officials are alarmed over the fact 
that “the young people are not joining the grange as they 
should.” 

When one of the church officials was asked about these 
boys he said, “Oh, they’ve all scattered now.” Like the 
Levite and the priest this church had the wrong kind of 
religion. 

A woman living on a hillside farm in eee New 
York State raised her own family ; then, when her brother’s 
wife died, raised his children and later adopted two boys 
from the State reformatory. Her only explanation of why 
she wanted to adopt these two was “they needed a good 
home.” The neighbors say they have it now. Any parent 
will agree that this reticent Christian woman has both the 
spirit of sacrifice and of service. 


A Livine RELIGION 


We live our religion each day in the week it Christ’s 
spirit dwells within us. We live it when we get up in the 
morning by spreading cheer and good will in the name 
of our Master. We live it at the breakfast table by kind- 
ness and courtesy. We live it at the store or in a trade by 
sincerity and honesty. We live it at the grange and farm 
bureau by a willingness to help. At the school election 
we will put childhood above taxes in the name of Him who 
blessed the children. At our community meetings we will 
have the spirit of service in the name of Him who went 
about doing good. Our farm will be a republic of kindness, 
our home a Christian democracy, our community the 
beginning of the kingdom of heaven, because Christ dwells 
with his disciples in our midst. 


WEEK-DAY RELIGION 17 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION - 


1. Do we have in our churches to-day people who are 
playing the part of the priest, the Levite, and the good 
Samaritan ? 

2. What is the difference between a Christian home and 
one where Christ’s principles of self-denial and service are 
not practiced ? 

3. What do you think about the statement that “too 
many of our meetings in the church are just talk”? 

4. How is Christian idealism lke the ate on a 
steamship ? 

5. A school trustee forbade the playing of games at 
school. He said to the teachers, “We send our children 
to school for you to learn ’em to work, not to play.” What 
about his everyday religion? 

6. A prominent church leader, who talks about the near- 
ness of God, has a tenant on his farm whose family is 
often sick because the house is unscreened, the drinking 
water is impure, and the work is too exacting. What atti- 
tude did Jesus take toward such religious leaders in his 
day? 

?. A pastor preached a straightforward sermon on law 
enforcement, and the paper came out the next week advis- 
ing “all ministers to stick to the old-time gospel.” Was 
the editor referring to Jesus’ gospel? 

8. Does a person usually have the spirit of service who 
stays away from the grange or farm bureau with the excuse 
that “a few are tryin’ to run it”? 


CHAPTER II 
NEIGHBORHOOD GATHERINGS 


FRIENDS 


WHEN our Saviour approached Gethsemane he yearned 
for his friends. We all need friends. When Kingsley was 
asked the secret of his life he replied, “I had a friend.” 
When life gets dull and monotonous, when parents argue, 
children quarrel, and neighbors gossip, then we need to 
get away from routine work, away from rigid duty, and 
enjoy the fellowship of our friends. These neighborly 
gatherings, get-togethers, or picnics keep us from drying 
up socially; that is, they give us the spirit of neighborli- 
ness. A community without picnics and socials is full of 
gossip and fault-finding. When neighbors get together 
they find they like each other better than they thought 
they did. Jesus, who gave us the parable of the good 
Samaritan, puts within the heart of his followers this 
spirit of good will, friendliness, and love for their neigh- 
bors. But we must cultivate this spirit of neighborliness 
by meeting with our neighbors. We must practice being 
good neighbors. The spirit of good will grows best at 
community meetings or neighborhood gatherings. The 
bonds of Israel were strengthened by their many feast 
days. The Jews had seven principal festivals during the 
year: the Passover, Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the 
Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of 
Lights, and the Feast of Purim. One of these—the Feast 
of Tabernacles—is thus described in Deuteronomy: 


ScRIPTURE LESSON 
Deut. 16. 13-15. 

13 Thou shalt keep the feast of tabernacles seven days, after 
that thou hast gathered in from thy threshing-floor and from 
thy wine-press: 14 and thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, 
and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy 
maid-servant, and the Levite, and the sojourner, and the 

18 


NEIGHBORHOOD GATHERINGS 19 


fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates. 15 Seven 
days shalt thou keep a feast unto Jehovah thy God in the 
place which Jehovah shall choose; because Jehovah thy God 
will bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the work of 
thy hands, and thou shalt be altogether joyful. 


Jesus observed the Jewish feast days and also attended 
the social meetings of his Galilean neighbors. 


John 2. 1-13. 

1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Gali- 
lee; and the mother of Jesus was there; 2 and Jesus also was 
bidden, and his disciples, to the marriage. 3 And when the 
-wine failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have 
no wine. 4 And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to 
do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. 5 His mother saith 
unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, doit. 6 Now 
there were six waterpots of stone set there after the Jews’ 
‘manner of purifying, containing two or three firkins apiece. 
7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And 
they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he saith unto them, 
Draw out now, and bear unto the ruler of the feast. And they 
bare it. 9 And when the ruler of the feast tasted the water 
now become wine, and knew not whence it was (but the 
servants that had drawn the water knew), the ruler of the 
feast calleth the bridegroom, 10 and saith unto him, Every man 
setteth on first the good wine; and when men have drunk 
freely, then that which is worse: thou hast kept the good wine 
until now. i1 This beginning of his signs did Jesus in Cana 
of Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed 
on him. 

12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his 
mother, and his brethren, and his disciples; and there they 
abode not many days. 

13 And the passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus 
went up to Jerusalem. 


CHANGES IN ONE COMMUNITY 


The Jews have been persecuted and scattered through- 
out every land, yet they have kept their spirit of unity, 
strengthened by the social as well as by the racial bonds. 
Jesus observed these meetings. His first miracle was per- 
formed at a meeting of Galilean neighbors in Cana. The 
prayer he taught us begins “Our Father.” The kingdom 
of heaven comes to our community through the coopera- 
tion of regenerated lives. We must play together, work 
together, and worship together. 

How this spirit of neighborliness, good will, and coop- 


20 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


eration can be brought about is illustrated in one needy 
community. After jolting along on a rough, slow train 
through great forests of pine sprinkled here and there with 
oak or magnolias, and now and then through large clear- 
ings, the new minister and his wife finally arrived at the 
station nearest the country church to which they had been 
sent. She busied herself in the grocery store, writing her 
first impressions back home, while he sought for a way 
for them to “catch a ride out” to the new parish. Hos- 
pitality and kindness are the chief characteristics of coun- 
try folk, and he soon found a means of transportation. 
As the mule team traveled slowly over the rough roads, 
many questions about the new parish were asked. The 
houses they passed on the way, unpainted, unplastered, 
and unpapered, were made of twelve-inch boards put on 
end. ‘The familiar one-mule cultivator was fighting back 
the weeds in the fields of cotton, corn, or “goobers.” The 
only bit of beauty or comfort in evidence was the roomy 
fireplace of each cabin, the smoke from which curled 
upward through the pines. This is the section of our 
country about which most of our American songs have 
been written. But God has dealt better with this com- 
munity than has man. For life here is just a monotonous 
round of working, eating, and sleeping. There is preach- 
ing once a month. The overcrowded country school has 
only a short term. Neighborhood kindness is expressed 
in Sunday dinners; but there are few if any gatherings 
where culture is taught, or ideals cultivated. 

The big house where the preacher was to stay was 
reached at last. It was one of the six painted houses out 
of a hundred and fifty homes. <A typical company dinner 
was soon ready—ham, corn bread, gravy, hot biscuits, 
sweet potatoes, molasses, and custard pie. “Just turn up 
your plates and help yourselves” was the way the diffident 
hostess had of starting the meal. 

Soon the pastoral visitation began, for only thus could 
the minister find out the specific needs of his parish. His 
program was to be made as a result of a study of the home 
and community needs. 

There were many children and young folk. In each of 
two homes ten children were found; in two more, nine. 


NEIGHBORHOOD GATHERINGS 21 


Most families had at least six under their roof. LHighty- 
one families lived within five miles of the church, all of 
them with many needs. They had no play days, no ath- 
letic teams, no women’s organizations, no place for self- 
expression. It was just one fine, big community of inertia. 
The lack of diversified farming and of cooperative mar- 
keting kept the people poor. Buying everything on credit 
kept them in debt. Living out of the store instead of the 
garden and orchard was a drain on their income as well 
as on their health. There were no magazines in the homes 
and few flowers around the houses. Calendars and post 
cards were the only wall decorations except the usual 
motto: “God bless our home.” But God seemed to be 
overlooking these well-meant petitions. 

At the first church service, when everybody “met up 
with” the preacher, and the greeting “How you-all?” was 
passed around, the new program had its beginnings. At 
church the women took no part in the worship. They sat 
on one side of the house, and the men on the other. The 
men at least found this a convenient arrangement, for 
they were not bothered with the noise of the children; and, 
besides, they need pass the collection plates only on one side 
of the house. When the children fell asleep, the mothers 
held all they could and laid the rest down upon an impro- 
vised. pallet in the aisles. 

Since the burden as well as the joy of the mothers 
was the care of the babies, the first move in the new 
community program was a mothers’ club. Nurses, doctors, 
and parents were brought to instruct these mothers of 
many children in better methods of child care. All phases 
of homemaking were discussed, even to flowers and paint 
for the house. The Home Economics Department of the 
State College of Agriculture helped by sending lecturers 
and bulletins. Before long one man painted his house. 
A woman laid in a stock of flower seeds. The homemakers 
began to “cook” white bread. A canning club was organ- 
ized, and once a month regularly, to the question “Whar 
you-all goin’?” the women proudly told of the work of 
their club. 

Before long an all-day “sing” was put on the schedule 
of the church activities. A dinner-on-the-grounds meeting 


22 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


brought out seventeen ‘hundred people, all of whom helped 
with the singing that day. At any rate, it revealed the 
fact that there were plenty of young people. Baseball, 
therefore, was next. But it didn’t seem quite right to 
the officers of the church for their young pastor to appear 
all the more youthful playing baseball. They were accus- 
tomed to an older man, an absentee pastor who came once 
a month. when the roads and weather were good. No 
doubt this aged minister had been very successful at one 
time, when he was pastor of his city church; but now that 
he was old he was sent out to this less critical rural con- 
eregation. Once a month he came with his long coat, his 
long face, and his long sermon, and then went back to his 
home in the next county, while the community slept on 
until his next appointment. At any rate, the people were 
used to him. Hence, they liked him and could not quite 
explain the actions of the new preacher. “It isn’t that 
we care,’ said members of the committee who came to 
call on this new pastor, “but the other folks are talking 
about you. They say you don’t look nor act anything like « 
a preacher. You go out on that baseball diamond without 
a coat, hat, or necktie, and you run around those bases. 
It isn’t that we care, but people of other denominations 
are talking. When a preacher plays baseball he’s gettin’ 
on cramped quarters.” 

The “baseball minister” explained to the two faithful 
oificials that Jesus won his disciples while they were busy 
at their tasks, fishing or collecting taxes, and that he hoped 
to win these boys for Christ on the baseball field. So one 
day, sitting on a log in Mr. Graham’s pasture after a suc- 
cessful game against a difficult team, the pastor, who 
pitched that day, and the captain of the team, who caught 
for him, had a long talk about winning life’s battles, with 
the Master of men as their Captain. That evening, as the 
shadows lengthened through the clump of woods west of 
the church, this young man selected his Captain for life. 
He also undertook the task of signing up the other players 
under his new leader. When the season was ended, nine 
baseball men were ready for any assignment in the task 
of building the kingdom of our Lord in this community. 

A pastoral visit to any home always gladdened the min- 


NEIGHBORHOOD GATHERINGS 23 


ister’s heart because of the honest hospitality and the 
united appreciation of his visit, yet never failed to empha- 
size the absence of beauty or cheer in the daily lives of 
the parishioners. The houses were void of beauty. There 
were no rugs on the floor, no draperies over the windows. 
Beds stood in nearly every room, and there was no real 
living room, with books and music. Most of the girls 
had never read a novel. The little touches of embroidered 
beauty were absent; instead were the oil-cloth-covered 
table, with long benches on either side, the carbon portraits 
of deceased relatives on the walls, and the splintery, bar- 
ren floors. Hence, the next community organization was 
an embroidery club for girls, which had to meet in two 
sections because no home could accommodate a full meet- 
ing of the group. 

When the was lying on the ground at the end of a corn 
row one July afternoon, talking over the ups and downs 
of life, the crops, prices, failures, work, the idea of a 
farmers’ club began. to grow in the pastor’s mind. Some 
would not join at first, because “they were not members 
of that sect.” One old man swore he’d “never be caught 
inside that church,” so the farmers’ club held its meetings 
for a while under the big tree back of the church to satisfy 
“the other sects” and the nonmembers. Crop rotation, 
fertilizers, sanitation, better markets, good schools, and 
healthier children were all discussed at the regular meet- 
ings. A good-roads picnic was arranged, and roads were 
improved. 

But what do all these community meetings have to do 
with religion? Is this just social service without the old- 
time gospel? No; itis a very old type of gospel. It goes 
back to Jesus’ time, when he carried cheer and the abun- 
dant life to the multitudes in their homes, at their work, 
in the market place, and in the field. Fourteen members 
of this farmers’ club were received into the church one 
Sunday morning. Three men of fifty-five years found 
Jesus as their Redeemer, and one man of sixty-five took 
him for his Friend for the first time. But the young were 
the principal goal of the church’s endeavors. The Sunday 
school grew from 128 to 225. Practically all the young 
people confessed Christ as their Saviour. The kingdom 


24 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


of our Lord comes to whole communities when they unite 
their hands with their hearts in practicing Christian 
neighborliness. 


A CHANGING ATTITUDE 


When improvements seem to come slowly, and suggested 
changes are opposed, we must not lose faith in our neigh- 
bors. All progress in neighborly cooperation is made over 
the protests of a few well-meaning but nonprogressive 
objectors. There is more progressive neighborhood coop- 
eration to-day in our country than ever before. | 

The school board of Lancaster, Ohio, in 1838 refused 
the use of the schoolhouse to a group of young men who 
wished to debate the feasibility of the railroad and tele- 

aph. “You are welcome to the use of the schoolhouse 
to debate all proper questions in,’ reads the document 
prepared by the school board, “but such things as railroads 
and telegraphs are impossibilities and rank infidelity. 
There is no work of God about them. If God had designed 
that his intelligent creatures should travel at the frightful 
speed of fifteen miles an hour by steam he would clearly 
have foretold it through his holy prophets. It is the device 
of Satan to lead immortal souls down to hell.” 

We need not be discouraged if someone old in spirit 
objects to our social program or tries to stop all progressive 
ideas that suggest a change. While those statements of 
the school board sound very backwoodsy to us, even to-day 
we can find a few people who seem to feel that the church 
house is more important than the church people, and who 
consequently do not want people to have any good times 
in the church. But the attitude is changing, and the social 
life of the neighborhood is rapidly becoming a part of the 
church activities. 


For YounG PEOPLE 


Community gatherings are important for the young 
people. Happy homes depend to a large extent on the 
opportunities young people have of forming friendships, 
and of forming them under right conditions. The impor- 
tant thing is to give them a wider circle of friends rather 
than to limit their acquaintances. In a certain isolated 


NEIGHBORHOOD GATHERINGS 25 


rural section many weddings take place at revival meetings. 
These seem to be the only occasions when the young people 
mingle freely. Think of your daughter spending a lifetime 
with a husband whom she had known only so short a time 
and when he was on his best behavior! Community meet- 
ings give young folk as well as old a chance to know each 
other better. 


Our HoLipays 


The value of a holiday celebration lies not only in the 
fact that everyone goes but also in what they do after 
they get there. It is not so much that we shall have a 
chance to visit but that we shall have something to say. 
Our great need is not simply to get an opportunity to 
express our ideas but to have some ideas to express, so our 
holidays must stimulate our thinking as well as our talk- 
ing. When we start our automobile engine without taking 
oft the brakes, it only makes a noise. Those who worry 
about the morals of young people should remember that 
if we can take care of their thinking, their morals will 
take care of themselves. This means that-our holiday cele- 
brations should be managed by some institution like the 
church or Sunday school, which has certain community 
ideals. Our neighborhood gatherings should have an edu- 
cational as well as a social value. 


DIRECTED PLAY 


When Miss Lilhan Wald went as a nurse to the Hast 
Side of New York City she was known by the children 
as “our play teacher.” She founded the Henry Street 
Settlement and inaugurated the work of the visiting nurse, 
spending most of her time with the sick; but she also 
directed a playground, and it was this that made the most 
impression on the children of the city streets. So they 
called: her their “play teacher.” It is well for those who 
would influence youth to know that the power of influence 
is given to those who play with young people more than 
to those who only teach them in the classroom. | 

Where can honesty be taught better than in a relay race? 
It is so easy for a player anxious to win to start too soon, 
to forget to be honest, to break rules in order to come out 


26 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


ahead. Where can teamwork be taught better than in 
relay races? If every boy and girl in our Sunday 
schools played basketball in their youth they would learn 
enough cooperation to prevent sectarian competition later 
on. Such games as volleyball, dodgeball, and three-deep 
teach alertness and courage and furnish much wholesome 
fun. 


CoMMUNITY PLAY DAYS 


Ata play day held in Wisconsin an old man, who had the 
courage to leave his work for a day to attend the meeting, 
began expressing his appreciation of the good time they 
were having. 

“Are you enjoying the day, too, Uncle Jim?” he was 
asked. 

“Of course I am,” said he. “I only wish these play 
days came twice a year instead of once.” 

Without question we would all be healthier and happier 
if we played more. 

Since the purpose of these play days is to have active 
play for all present instead of a few playing and the rest 
looking on, a suggested day’s program is given: 

10 A. M. Baseball game—boys. 

Dodgeball—girls: 
Looby Loo—little children. 
Pitching horseshoes—men. 


uO A. M. Batball—boys and men. 
Partner tag—girls and women. 
Follow-the-leader—little children. 


12 A. M. Picnic dinner. 
1:30 p. mM. Singing and short address. 


2:30 Pp. mM. Volleyball—boys. 
Last-couple-out—girls. 
Ring-around-the-rosy—little children, 
Circle-catch-ball—women. 

Baseball game—men. 


3:30 Pp. M. Prisoners’ base—boys. 
Three-deep—zirls. 
Here-we-go-round-the-mulberry-bush—little 
children. 
Volleyball—women versus men. 


NEIGHBORHOOD GATHERINGS 27 


4 Pp. M. Tug-of-war—boys. 
Playground ball—girls. 
Nuts-in-May—little children. 
Passing-relay raceS—women and men. 


CoMMUNITY MEETINGS 


One way of cultivating the spirit of neighborliness is 
for all to unite in some kind of a community meeting 
regularly once a month. These meetings could be held in 
the evenings at the church or could be made an afternoon 
or an all-day affair. Games similar to those mentioned 
above should be played at most neighborhood gatherings. 
At least a thirty-minute period should be given to playing 
games at each meeting. 

The following days or events are among those that could 
be observed : 


January: Spelling contest. 
Music night. 


February: Lincoln’s birthday—February 12. 
Washington’s birthday—February 22. 
Bible night. 


March: Saint Patrick’s Day—March 17. 
Arbor Day (day appointed by the Governor). 
Boys’ and girls’ club night. 


April: Health day. 
Poetry night. 
Parsonage- and church-improvement day. 


May: May Day—May 1. 
Peace day—May 18. 
Memorial Day—May 30. 
Mother’s Day—second Sunday in May. 


June: Children’s Day—second Sunday in June. 
Better-country-homes program. 
Sunday-school picnic. 


July: Independence Day—July 4. 
Newcomers’ social. 
August: Road-improvement day. 


Community play day. 


September: Labor Day—First Monday in September. 
Homecoming day. 

October: Columbus Day—October 12. 
Halloween social—October 31. 
Reading-and-books program. 


28 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


November: Armistice Day—November 11. 
Thanksgiving Day—last Thursday in November. 


December: Christmas—December 25. 


Noah may have led his group into the ark one by one 
or even two at a time, but we do not walk into the kingdom 
of heaven that way. We belong to one great family or 
neighborhood, each person influencing every other. Only 
the few stay good in an evil community. The prayer which 
Jesus taught us begins “Our Father” and ends with a 
proclamation of the social gospel: “Thine is the kingdom, 
and the power, and the glory.” 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 


1. What unchristian attitudes are apt to be formed by a 
stay-at-home? 

2. The Jews have eight principal festivities each year. 
How many picnics or neighborhood gatherings were held 
in this community last year? 

3. What should be the principal purpose or purposes of 
a picnic? 

4, What do you think about commercialized amuse- 
ments? About pay socials at the church? 

5. How is play helpful? 

6. Which of the annual events or community meetings 
mentioned above are practical in this neighborhood ? 

%7. Is it the duty of the church and Sunday school to 
provide for these meetings? 


CHAPTER IIT 
OUR SICK NEIGHBORS 


JESUS BrouGgHt LIFE 


THe church for years has cared for the sick. But to-day 
ideas regarding health are changing. Sickness comes from 
disease germs, not from ill luck. Preventing sickness is 
even more Christian than nursing the sick. Jesus said, “I 
came that they may have life, and may have t¢ abundantly.” 
To carry out the intentions of our Lord the church is 
changing its program so as to help keep the people well. 

A pastor in Virginia said that the wealthiest farmer in 
his community thought that flies were healthful. 

“We need them,” said the manager of this five-hundred- 
acre-farm, “to eat up the filth.” 

‘This man simply did not know. When his pastor 
arranged with the county health officer to speak in his 
church on “Flies as Disease Carriers,” he woke up. The 
next day he went to town and loaded. his car with screens 
ee his house. He simply hadn’t understood the problem 
before. 

Many non-Christian religions teach the defiling of one’s 
body. Devotees torture themselves. They worship in dis- 
ease-infested temples or bathe in unsanitary streams called 
holy in their well-meaning but ignorant fanaticism. Jesus 
taught us the worth of a man’s body as well as his soul. 
Where Christ’s gospel is preached throughout the world, 
there follow hospitals and clinics, doctors and nurses, 
hygiene and health. This Christian emphasis on health 
applies not only to heathen lands but to home lands, not 
only to foreign peoples but to our own community and 
to our own families. 


SCRIPTURE LESSON 
1 Cor. 6. 19-20. 
19 Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy 
Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are 
29 


30 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


not your own; 20 for ye were bought with a price: glorify 
God therefore in your body. 


Rom. 12. 1. 


1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 
to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to 
God, which is your spiritual service. 


Luke 4. 18-19. 


18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the 
poor: 
He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, 
And recovering of sight to the blind, 
To set at liberty them that are bruised, 
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. 


Matt. 4. 23. 


23 And Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their 
synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and 
healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness 
among the people. 


Moses, THE First GREAT TEACHER OF SANITATION 


In the Mosaic law strict regulations are given regarding 
sewage disposal. In Lev. 7.21 we read: “And when any 
one shall touch any unclean thing, the uncleanness of man, 
cr an unclean beast, or any unclean abomination, and eat 
of the fiesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings, which per- 
tain unto Jehovah, that soul shall be cut off from his 
people.” Read Deut. 23. 12-14 and see how strictly the 
sanitary laws were enforced in that early period. Even 
to-day in our Southern States two million people have 
hookworm simply because they do not observe the simple 
rules of sanitation given us in the book of Leviticus. The 
reason the people north of the Mason and Dixon line are 
free from this plague is not because of any special clean~- 
liness there, ‘but because the hookworm cannot live in the 
colder climate. Schools can be found which have forty 
per cent of the pupils infected with hookworm, because 
proper outbuildings have not been provided at the schools 
and the homes. Strange as it may seem, the church 
usually pays the least attention of any institution to these 
simple sanitary rules. 

Other intestinal diseases, such as typhoid fever and 


7 


OUR SICK NEIGHBORS 31 


dysentery, can be greatly diminished by proper sewage 
disposal. In nine counties in North Carolina, in the four 
years 1914-17, the total deaths from typhoid fever were 
478—an average of 119 per annum. In 1918, as a result 
of an educational campaign against soil pollution in these 
nine counties, a total of 6,480 fly-proof privies were built. 
Deaths due to typhoid decreased from 119 to 24, or to one 
fifth of the former number. 

We usually speak of someone as being “a good neigh- 
bor” if he willingly lends to us the things we need. If 
this same man votes against bonds for a sewage-disposal 
system in his village, is he really a good neighbor? 

The yearly expenditure for sickness in the United States 
is thirty-seven dollars for each family. The neighbor who 
hands me this bill to pay is not a good neighbor. 

People who object to being quarantined for contagious 
diseases, such as measles or diphtheria, saying, “Quaran- 
tine is just another newfangled notion,” should read the 
book of Deuteronomy. Here is an example of the strict 
biblical ordinances: “If there be among you any man, 
that is not clean by reason of that which chanceth him by 
night, then shall he go abroad out of the camp, he shall 
not come within the camp” (Deut. 23. 10). 

Health can be made safe even among the most unfa- 
vorable circumstances, and no matter what health costs it is 
a good investment. The expenses of our annual death rate 
from preventable diseases in the United States, according 
to the Massachusetts Board of Health, are enough to build 
in each State twenty hospitals, eight colleges, one hundred 
libraries, and, in addition, build two transcontinental 
highways and then have enough money left to increase our 
appropriations one hundred million dollars to our public 
schools. 

These statements seem exaggerated until we examine 
a few communities. An experiment was made in Arkansas 
to rid four towns of malaria. Pools were drained or filled. 
Sluggish streams were ditched. Oil was applied to surface 
water. The breeding places of the mosquito were done 
away with; thus one cause of the malaria was eliminated. 
In 1916, before the experiment, the number of calls made 
by physicians in one of these Arkansas towns—Hamburg— 


32 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


on patients suffering from malaria was 2,312. In 1917, 
the year the experiment was made, the calls dropped to 
259, and in 1918 to 59. 

What did health cost in this instance? In this town of 
only a little more than a thousand population the cost of 
this experiment to each person was in 1917 only $1.45 
and it dropped in 1918 to 44 cents. 

In an Arkansas lumber town in Ashley County the local 
physicians estimated that sixty per cent of all illness was 
due to malaria. The mosquito was eliminated by ridding 
the place of all stagnant water. Within one year the 
malaria in this town decreased seventy-two per cent. The. 
cost per capita for this work was $1.24, and each person 
saved more than thirty dollars on doctor bills and the loss 
of time from work due to sickness. Health is a good 
investment. 

Riding along the road with a doctor in Oklahoma 
recently, the writer passed: a big duck pond, to which 
people come for miles to shoot ducks in the winter and to 
swim in the summer. “I made a mint of money,” said 
my doctor friend, “from that stagnant pool.” The neigh- 
bors care for the sick in that community and feel that 
they are rendering helpful Christian service; but would it 
not be a greater service, more Christian and more neigh- 
borly, for them to drain that pool? 


HEALTH WorK A Patriotic Duty 


Sometimes a man who advocates health measures is 
blamed by his neighbors for increasing taxes. Even 
though he is not praised or honored, his service is a 
patriotic one. He is a true neighbor and a friendly citizen. 

Every schoolboy knows of the famous midnight ride of 
Paul Revere from Charlestown to Lexington to warn the 
Minute Men of the approaching British troops. It is not 
a fact so well known that this same daring patriot was 
chairman of the Board of Health of the city of Boston. 
In this office he warned his neighbors of as grave dangers 
as on his midnight ride. The patriot is one who coop- 
erates with the county health officer and the visiting nurse 
in making his community a safe place in which to live. 

One of the world’s great patriots and benefactors was 


OUR SICK NEIGHBORS 33 


reared in a humble tanner’s home in southern France. 
In college Emile Pasteur was known as “only an ordinary 
student”; and when he received his bachelor-of-science 
degree, a note was attached to his diploma on which were 
written the words: “Only mediocre in chemistry.” Yet 
this humble country lad gave us the germ theory of disease 
and inaugurated the great modern movement of preventive 
medicine. He discovered the cause of disease. He found 
that God doesn’t send disease, nor does Satan. It isn’t 
a question of luck. No magician can coax it away. Much 
of it comes from invisible germs. This was the theory 
this scientist proved, the theory that has revolutionized 
the practice of medicine. Pasteur showed the surgeon 
that if germs are kept away from the wound it will heal. 
He emphasized the need of quarantining people with 
infectious diseases. Methods of vaccination were also 
demonstrated. This man’s name is familiar in every 
household where milk is used. His noble and generous 
nature is shown by the fact that he refused to patent any 
of his discoveries. He lived to serve his fellow men and 
always remained as simple and as affectionate as a child. 


Tue NurRSE, A PRACTITIONER OF CHRISTIAN 
NEIGHBORLINESS 


Most of our Lord’s miracles had to do with health. He 
went about in all Galilee with a great interest in his sick 
neighbors. Many of his followers to-day meet him daily 
at the sick bed of a neighbor. It was said of Florence 
Nightingale, “Wherever there was suffering or sorrow, 
she was sure to be found.” As a small child in rural 
England she loved nature and animals. Her most delight- 
ful play was to nurse and bandage her dolls. Her first 
living patient was a shepherd’s dog. Naturally she studied 
nursing. When the Crimean War broke out, a letter from 
the secretary of war asking her to go as a nurse crossed 
with a letter from her volunteering her services. She 
turned the appalling hell of the hospital at Scutari into a 
well-ordered institution. For twenty hours, it was said, 
she would stand nursing the wounded soldiers; and when 
the medical officers had retired for the night, she, with a 
little lamp in her hand, would make her solitary rounds, 


384 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


_ always tender and kind to the suffering ones. Soon she 
was superintendent of all the hospitals on the Bosphorus, 
with ten thousand sick men under her charge. The enthu- 
siasm aroused in England by her labors of love was inde- 
scribable ; and when the time came for her return, the gov- 
ernment ordered a man-of-war to bring her. But no, she 
came back on another boat to her quiet home and evaded 
her triumphant reception in London. Her next neigh- 
borly service was to found a home for training nurses. 
As long as she lived she went about among the sick in order 
that they “may have life, and may have it abundantly.” 

A similar type of service is seen at Henry Street Settle- 
ment, New York City, in the work of Miss Lillian Wald, 
who inaugurated visiting nursing in this country. In 1890 
there were only twenty-one associations in the United 
States employing visiting nurses. ‘To-day more than ten 
thousand nurses are engaged in this type of work. These 
messengers of mercy and health are employed by school 
boards, by county officials, and by the Red Cross. No 
man who prays: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven,” should vote against employing 
a visiting nurse. 

The signposts to health are: 


Breathe deeply. . Sleep regularly. 
Eat temperately. Work planfully. 
Chew thoroughly. Exercise daily. 
Drink (water) copiously. Serve willingly. 
Clean teeth carefully. Speak kindly. 
Bathe frequently. Play some. 
Eliminate freely. Read some. 
Laugh heartily. Think some. 


Dare to be yourself—cheerful, conscientious, brave. 


HEALTH EDUCATION 


People who say, “I would rather die than go to a doc- 
tor,” usually get their wish, and get it early. They think 
they know a great deal about health, but they know it 
wrongly. Many families spend more for patent medicines 
than for medicine prescribed by a doctor. What is needed 
in every community is health education. Talks to moth- 
ers about the proper care of babies and baby clinics are 
practical and helpful. Medical examination in the schools 


OUR SICK NEIGHBORS 35 


prevents neighborhood epidemics and keeps children and 
young people healthy. In many communities there is 
conducted a good-health test, a health conference, or a 
lecture course on public health. Ministers are observing 
health Sundays. The story of the good Samaritan is being 
lived again in these ways. 


A MopERN PARABLE 


A tenant farmer was sick and weary. The weeds were 
taking his crops. The future looked dark for him. 

A representative of the missionary board of his church 
came by, made a survey, took some pictures, prepared a 
report, and hastily returned to headquarters. 

A high official of the church learned with regret of the 
man’s misfortune and sent him a copy of his latest book 
on The Common Fellowship of Sorrow. 

The local pastor heard of the tenant’s plight from his 
landlord, with whom he was spending the day. The land- 
lord was concerned for his neglected fields. The pastor’s 
heart was touched. He wondered why he hadn’t called on 
the sick man long before. The next day he plowed the 
man’s corn. His wife came too and touched with hope 
and love the sick household. The next day a nurse was 
brought. The pastor persuaded the landlord to have the 
house screened. He kept other members of the family 
from the fever. 

The worn and weary wife shed tears of gratitude and 
joy. But the oldest daughter was unmoved and bitter, 
saying in her heart with resentment, “If thou hadst come 
earlier, my father would not have taken sick.” 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 


1. Who is to blame for the death of a baby: (a) if it 
contracted disease from impure milk because its father 
kept a dirty stable? (0b) if the impure milk was bought 
from a milk dealer? (c) if it contracted its disease from 
impure water from the well on the farm which the family 
was renting? (d) if the sickness was caused by lack of 
screens on the house? 

2. What in the life of Jesus showed that he was inter- 
ested in health? 


36 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


38. Are there any swamps in this community where mos- 
quitoes are bred? 

4, Which costs more—screens for the house or a 
funeral ? 

5. Which kind of a sermon is more in harmony with 
the teachings of Jesus—a talk showing why our denom- 
ination is the best or a talk on health? 

6. Which is the best way of helping a mother in the 
home: (a) to cheer her up with the idea that she will get 
a rest in heaven? (0) to wait until she gets sick and then 
send her to a first-class hospital for treatment? (c) to 
explain to her on Mother’s Day the joys of self-sacrifice ? 
(ad) to arrange for an occasional vacation for her so she 
can keep well? 





CHAPTER IV 
OUR HOMES 


PRACTICE RELIGION AT HOME 


A HUSBAND and wife in the Middle West recently cele- 
brated their golden-wedding anniversary. The neighbors 
congratulated them on their fifty happy years together. 
Yet during that time the man’s wife had walked, while 
carrying water into the house, as far as to Los Angeles 
and back. 

Suppose she had actually walked to Los Angeles and 
back carrying a pail of water. The newspapers would 
have sent reporters to interview her along the way. They 
would have taken a picture of her “leaving Kansas City” 
or “entering Albuquerque” or “crossing the deserts of 
Arizona.” Editorials would have appeared condemning 
any husband who would make his wife walk so far carry- 
ing a pail of water. The editor would explain how much 
cheaper it would be for him to buy her a round-trip ticket, 
and someone would suggest that this husband, who claimed 
to love his wife so much, should be sent to the insane 
asylum. 

Take a paper and pencil and figure up the distance 
traveled by a woman carrying water into the house and 
you will find that not one but many farmers’ wives walk 
as far as from Saint Louis to Los Angeles and back during 
their married life, carrying a pail of water. A system of 
running water in the house would save all of such drudgery. 
About one out of ten farm houses now have running water. 

Once a year we celebrate Mother’s Day at the church. 
We listen to a sermon about the sacrifices of our mothers. 
But how far should our religion help us in preventing 
these sacrifices in the future? Is an autocratic home 
Christian? In some homes “might makes right.” If Jesus’ 
teachings were followed, how would our homes be changed ? 
The Bible contains many verses that show us that a home 
should be a Christian fellowship. 

37 


88 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


SCRIPTURE LESSON 
1 Tim, 5:)8. 
8 But if any provideth not for his own, and specially his 
own. household, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than 
an unbeliever. 


Josh. 24. 15. 


15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve Jehovah, choose 
you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which 
your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods 
of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and 
my house, we will serve Jehovah. 


Eph. 6. 4. 
4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but 
nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. 


Prov. ‘3. 33. 
33 The curse of Jehovah is in the house of the wicked; 
But he blesseth the habitation of the righteous. 


Eph. 5. 25. 
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved 
the church, and gave himself up for it. 


Gen. 18. 19. 

19 For I have known him, to the end that he may com- 
mand his children and his household after him, that they may 
keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice; to 
the end that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham that which 
he hath spoken of him. 

Mark 5. 19. 

19 And he suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go to 
thy house unto thy friends, and tell them how great things 
the Lord hath done for thee, and how he had mercy on thee. 

Gal. 6. 2. 


Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of 
Christ. 


A VACATION 


It is easier to be religious at church than at home. But 
I would not vote for a man for superintendent of the 
Sunday school or teacher of the Bible class who had never 
arranged for his wife to have a vacation. Keeping house 
and caring for children is so much of a strain, there is so 
much drudgery about it, that many men are “taking 
things into their own hands,” as they say, and are arrang- 


OUR HOMES 39 


ing for someone to care for the children while they take 
their wives away for a brief vacation at least once a year. 
“T haven’t had a vacation in fourteen years” were the 
plaintive words of a mother of three children. “Yes, I 
really have had three vacations since I’ve been married— 
the three times I went to the hospital. Sometimes I feel 
so tied at home I want to just run away. I say to Charlie, 
‘It is such a nice afternoon, I think I’ll take a little walk.’ 
‘It is a nice day,’ he says; ‘let us take the children and 
all go.” So TI never get away from my work and my chil- 
dren. Few men realize how tied at home most of us 
mothers feel.” : 


SAVING STEPS 


The way we treat other members of our family is not 
written down on the church roll nor reported upon by 
the secretary of the Sunday school, but it is very impor- 
tant nevertheless. A father who asks his wife to hunt up 
the number for him each time he talks over the telephone 
need not be surprised that this same mother must hunt 
for a half hour for their son’s hat. A girl who hurries 
off to lead the Epworth League and leaves her mother with 
the Sunday dishes to wash is not practicing what she 
preaches. If, however, we expect the young people in the 
home to show consideration we must both set them the 
example and cultivate in them the habit. 

A young-looking mother living in a neat New Jersey 
home said, “It is hard to teach my family to pick up their 
own things, but it doesn’t seem fair to pick up after them 
all of their lives.’ Teaching children to pick up their 
toys may seem a small matter, but it is starting them right 
on life’s journey if they are to practice helpfulness and the 
proper consideration of others. 


CoNVENIENT HovusEs 


Some houses are apparently built for looks, some for 
entertaining company, and some for the convenience of 
the housekeeper. Beside the road in the beautiful country 
of Pennsylvania stands a stately farmhouse—“the old 
home.” Here company often came. Many, many times 


the long walnut table in the dining room “groaned” in 


40 <A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


front of happy guests. Passers-by remarked about the 
“beauty of the lawn,” “‘the roses in the front yard,” and 
“the big white house.” The five children could always 
bring their playmates here. As time passed, and the play- 
mates became “company,” no complaint was heard from 
the long-suffering mother regarding the extra work. After 
the five children had gone into homes of their own, still 
they gathered around the old table for Thanksgiving 
dinners and other homecomings. At one of these reunions 
the inconvenience in the arrangement of the house was 
discussed. There were ten rooms, but not a clothes closet 
anywhere. The kitchen was large and long, with no labor- 
saving equipment, not even a shelf. The dining room was 
large, built for guests, and not to save work. And where 
do you think the pantry was? Not near the kitchen, to 
save steps, but off from the farther end of the dining 
room. And where do you suppose the cellar was dug? 
Under the kitchen or dining room so as to be handy? No, 
under the parlor, because it meant less digging there. And 
to go upstairs one went out to the front hall, for the back 
stairs were too steep to be usable. Back of the house on 
the hillside was a spring from which the water was piped. 
No one seemed to think of piping it into the house. For 
fifty winters the mother had gone out and. kneeled down on 
the icy rocks and dipped up the water needed. These 
things were all discussed at this family reunion by the 
five children. 

“We will put in a dumb waiter,” said one of the sons, 
“to save going up and down the cellar so much.” 

“Tt will be a simple matter to put running water into 
the house and build a sink and a bathroom,” said 
another. 

Paper and pencils and a yard stick and a desire to save 
steps for the aged mother produced plans for hot and cold 
water, a built-in kitchen cabinet, and all sorts of con- 
veniences. And then the carpenters came, and the stone- 
masons, and finally the painter and the plumber. They 
had all finished their work except the plumber, when the 
aged mother, after fifty years of toil, suddenly entered into 
her long rest. The children had remodeled the house too 
late. Why do we keep on praising the sacrifice of our 





OUR HOMES 41 


mothers when the better thing to do is to make these 
sacrifices unnecessary ? i 

When we say a house is modern we mean that it has a 
good heating and lighting system, that it has clothes closets 
in the bedrooms and shelves built into the kitchen walls 
and perhaps a built-in kitchen cabinet. A laundry room 
is built back of the kitchen, and a play room for the chil- 
dren is on the first floor. Many of the newer houses are 
bungalows to save climbing upstairs. Modern houses cost 
little more to build than the big, uncomfortable ones with 
no conveniences. 


LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY 


There are always those who object to improvements in 
the home. One man said, “My wife should get along with 
this ‘house if my mother did.” But they do not argue thus 
about the farm. One machine after another has been 
adopted for the purpose of saving labor. The scythe has 
given place to the mower. ‘The self-binder has taken the 
place of the reaping hook. The big combination harvester 
that cuts and threshes the grain is a great contrast to the 
old cradle. The farmer rides when he plows. He digs 
potatoes with machinery. The wind or perhaps a gasoline 
engine pumps his water. The cows are sometimes milked 
by machinery. ‘The horses pull the hay into the mow. 
A gasoline engine fills the silo. The farm buildings are 
arranged to save steps. The harness is hung behind the 
horses that wear it. The hay is stored above the stock 
that eats it. The silo is built adjoining the stable. The 
corn crib is next to the pig pen. Water is piped into the 
dairy barn. With the scarcity of farm help and the grad- 
ual shortening of the work day labor-saving equipment 
is necessary on the farm. 

But what about the labor-saving equipment inside the 
house? Someone says, “There aren’t as many labor-saving 
devices on the market for the house as there are for the 
farm.” This would indicate that there hasn’t been a sale 
for them. Yet when we look around we find many such 
household devices. There are the motor-driven washer 
and wringer, which save much back-breaking labor. The 
vacuum cleaner is the ‘housekeeper’s friend. A kitchen 


42 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


cabinet saves innumerable steps. Is running water more 
necessary in the dairy barn than in the house? A heating 
plant as well as a lighting system is found in modern 
houses. Furthermore, much of the labor-saving equipment 
for the house is inexpensive compared to farm machinery. 
A family can buy a dust mop, a pressure cooker, an electric 
iron, and a motor for the sewing machine all for less than 
half the cost of a mowing machine or a disc harrow. 

Someone says, “The household equipment isn’t used as 
much of the year as farm machinery.” A system of run- 
ning water in the house would cost less than a tractor. 
Which is used more days in the year? A kitchen cabinet 
costs less than a mowing machine. Which is used more 
often? A house could be thoroughly equipped with every 
labor-saving device known for what it would cost to build 
a silo or buy a truck or a tractor. 

After all, it is not a question of money or usability; it 
is simply a question of attitude. Are we fair? Are we 
considerate of others? Do we wish to make other lives easy 
and happy? Religion affects our home life. Here we are 
our real selves. An attitude of consideration and helpful- 
ness for each member of our family is a better index of 
our religion than what we say in church. I would rather 
ask a man’s wife about his religion than his pastor. 


A CHANGED ATTITUDE 


Jesus brought Christian democracy. When one member 
of the family rules the others with an iron will, we have 
tyranny. ‘This condition in the home is contrary to the 
teachings of the New Testament. When each does as he 
pleases, we have anarchy. Families cannot exist by this 
method. Where each member of the family is a partner 
in the business, we have Christian democracy. In a real 
Christian home all cooperate in work and in play, in saving 
and spending, in school plans and in church plans. 

Let us examine the non-Christian home and see the 
attitude there: “Hear me,” said a fiery Urdu in northern 
India. “Let us now consider the shameful wrong and 
harm which the hated English Raj has brought even into 
the sanctity of our own homes. Perhaps we could even 
forgive the other wrongs, but can we ever forgive the 


OUR HOMES 43 


wrong the white man’s rule has done our women? You 
all know of the modesty and humility with which our 
women were endowed in olden days. Have not our fathers 
told us how the women of the household conducted them- 
selves before the coming of the English influence and edu- 
cation? Why, in those days it were a shame for a woman 
to be seated while her lord stood, or while any man of her 
family was standing. Nay, she must not even sit upon 
a low bed, even after her master sat down in a chair; 
but if she sat at all, it must be upon the floor. Then was 
she ready to do his service, quick to do his bidding. But 
what do we find now? Let our own hearts answer. Do 
the women of our homes rise from their seats upon the bed 
when we enter? Nay, they do not think it shame even to 
sit upon chairs in our presence. I tell you, if this destruc- 
tive rule is not speedily driven from our land, our women 
will begin to think themselves our equals. And if a man 
cannot be master in his own house, sad is his lot. God for- 
bid the coming of that day when our modest and gentle 
women should go about with the boldness of the white 
women, demanding and receiving honor from their hus- 
bands which no woman can ever be worthy to receive.” 

It is this type of non-Christian home in India and 
also in our own land which the Christian religion seeks to. 
change. 


RELIGION IN THE HoME 


Family cooperation is the key to family worship. The 
family altar died under the old patriarchal type of family 
life in America. ‘We may scare our children into obedience. 
We may insist on their sitting still during family worship, 
but history has shown us that these same children when 
grown have not always cherished the family altar. 

Religion in the home must be made attractive, some- 
thing in which all members of the family can have a part. 
If a psalm is read in family worship, why not let the chil- 
dren take turns in doing the reading? A little book con- 
taining special selections from the Bible, with explanations, 
like Fosdick’s The Manhood of the Master or Bosworth’s 
Christ in Everyday Infe, is better understood than a long, 
unexplained chapter from Leviticus or Revelation. Excel- 


44. A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


lent manuals of devotion are available which provide a 
brief service of worship, Scripture reading, a selection from 
other religious literature, and a prayer.t Such a service 
may be conducted preceding or following the morning or 
evening meal, and its influence hallows the entire day. 
Instead of the same member of the family saying grace 

at the table a thousand times a year, it will add to the 
interest of the children if they all take part. They might 
sing in concert such a prayer as: 

“God is great and God is good, 

And we thank him for this food; 


By his hand must all be fed: 
Give us, Lord, our daily bread.” 


It is important to vary the words as well as the method of 
the family devotions. Another prayer for the whole fam- 
ily to repeat at the table is: 


“For these and all thy gifts of love 
We give thee thanks and praise. 
Look down, O Father, from above 
And bless us all our days.” 


Prayers should be changed to suit the special needs of 
the family. For example, if the children are having a 
“quarreling spell,” such a prayer as this may be used: 


“Dear Father in heaven, we thank thee to-day 

For food and for clothing, for work and for play; 
Now help us all gladly to do what is right, 

And keep us from quarreling till bedtime to-night.” 


Small children like motion prayers. Even the baby can 
imitate the movements of the others. Prayers such as the 
following can easily be learned: 


“We fold our hands, that we may be [fold hands] 
From earthly play and work set free; 

We bow our heads as we draw near [bow heads] 
The King of kings, our Father dear. 

We close our eyes, that we may see [close eyes] 
Nothing to take our thoughts from thee; 

Into our hearts we pray thee come, 

And may they each become thy home; 

Cast out the sin and make us free; 

Pure like the Christ Child may we be. 


1One such Manual is The Book of Worship: For Use at Table on Every D 
the Year, Barclay. The Methodist Book Consent ‘ 2 Paes, 


OUR HOMES A 


This is the prayer we bring to thee. 

Then open our eyes thy light to sce [open eyes], 

Lift up our heads to praise thee still [lift heads], 
Open our hands to do thy will [open hands]. 


The evening prayer and bedtime stories are the days’ 
benedictions. Here life’s ideals are formed, sympathy is 
developed, benevolence grows, family affection is sealed, 
and the presence of God 1s made real. The familiar prayer 
is easy to learn: 

“Now I lay me down to sleep; 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep; 


Thy love be with me through the night 
And keep me safe till morning light.” 


Another prayer of which children are fond is this: 


“Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me: 
Bless thy little lamb to-night. 
Through the darkness be thou near me; 
Keep me Safe till morning light. 
All this day thy hand hath led me, 
And I thank thee for thy care; 
Thou hast clothed me, warmed and fed me; 
Listen to my evening prayer. 
Let my sins be all forgiven; 
Bless the friends I love so well. 
Help me make this earth a heaven, 
Fit therein for all to dwell.” 


At the end of a day’s work in a home where consideration 
for others and helpfulness are practiced, and where reli- 
gion is a family affair, as the last task of the day is com- 
pleted, and the children are tucked away by tired hands, 
there is something in the heart that gives one the concep- 
tion of the folding of angels’ wings. As in the far North 
the golden rays of the sunset fade into the gray dawn of 
the morning, so will a loving Christian spirit steal into the 
hearts and lives of the family circle. 


QUESTIONS FoR DiscussION 


_ 1. Which has more improved machinery for saving 
labor—the housewife or her husband? Why? 

2. Whose fault is it that the new houses are not modern 
—that is, do not have running water, a bathroom, built- 
in conveniences, clothes closets, and laundry room? 


46 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


3. What have you to say for a man who puts an umbrella 
on his riding plow and expects his wife to stand over a 
kitchen stove without the use of a gas or oil heater in the 
summer months? 

4, What labor-saving devices for the house would you 
suggest? 

5. Suggest a way of caring for the small children at 
Sunday-school picnics and similar gatherings, so that the 
mothers can enjoy the outing, 

6. Discuss a plan for a mothers’ room in the church— 
a room where babies can be cared for during the services. 

%. How often should a mother have a vacation? 

8. Discuss Mother’s Day programs in which the sacri- 
fices of the mothers are praised, and we wear flowers in 
their honor. What would you think of letting the mothers 
wear the flowers? 

9. How can the custom of family worship be established 
in more homes in this community ? 





CHAPTER V 
OUR CHILDREN 


THE CHILD IN THE MIpsT 


WHEN the great Lincoln was passing through the stress 
and strain of the Civil War, his days were burdened with 
the large number of impatient callers at the White House. 
Great generals came to talk over future campaigns. Gov- 
ernors brought requests from war-weary people. Senators 
came to talk to the Great Emancipator about the affairs 
of state. Regardless of rank these important guests had 
to wait outside Lincoln’s office in the White House until 
he could see them. Sometimes they stood in line all day 
before the busy war President called them. While waiting, 
the anxious visitors would watch a small boy slide down 
the stairs and go in and out of the President’s office at will. 
Why should these men of renown be compelled to stand in 
line while one small boy had ready entrance to the Presi- 
dent? ‘'The secret was that this boy was none other than 
little Tad Lincoln. Being the President’s son, he had this 
coveted access to his father’s presence. Children are the 
center of every complete home, be that home great or 
small, rich or poor. When Jesus wanted to teach his 
disciples about the kingdom of heaven he put a small child 
in their midst. 


SCRIPTURE LESSON 
Matt. 18, 1-6. 


1 In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who 
then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2 And he called 
to him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, 3 and 
said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as 
little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of 
heaven. 4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this 
little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 
5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name 
receiveth me: 6 but whoso shall cause one of these little ones 
that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that 


47 


48 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that 
he should be sunk in the depth of the sea. 


Mark 10. 13-16. 


13 And they were bringing unto him little children, that he 
should touch them: and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But 
when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said 
unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me; forbid 
them not: for to such belongeth the kingdom of God. 15 
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the king- 
dom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein. 
16 And he took them in his arms, and blessed them, laying 
his hands upon them. 


THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 


Jesus did not tell us that the kingdom of heaven was a 
place but he said it was a company. It was made up of 
children and of people with child hearts. One day when 
he had his arms full of boys and girls he said, “T’o such 
belongeth the kingdom of God.” The only time the Master 
showed great displeasure toward his disciples was when 
they kept the children away from him. The severest pun- 
ishment he ever recommended—that of hanging a mill- 
stone around a man’s neck and throwing him into the sea 
—was for the heinous crime of offending a child. 

In the light of Jesus’ attitude on this subject let us 
examine again our attitude toward the children in our 
midst, in our homes, in our church, in our community. 
Let us see what we are doing for their health, their play, 
their work, their religious life. 


Our Best Farm Crops 


A group of farmers and their wives met one evening at 
their church to hold what they called a forum. They talked 
about “hard times,” “high taxes,” “low prices for their 
produce,” and “the scarcity of help.” Finally, the chair- 
man asked them what was their principal crop. The replies 
were “oats,” “fruit,” “potatoes,” “hay,” “milk.” Finally, 
one woman shyly ventured the answer: “Our boys and 
girls.” This reply evoked laughter as well as approval. 
Did these parents really believe this? Before the meeting 
the subject of discussion outside the church was “auto- 
mobiles” and inside the church was “chickens.” Let us 


OUR CHILDREN 49 


study the community. One farmer present was a graduate 
of the agricultural college, where for four years he studied 
how to take care of calves. Nobody in that community 
had taken a course in the care of babies. This farmer 
raised ninety-nine calves out of a hundred that were born; 
but for every hundred babies born in that section of the 
State only ninety lived to the age of one year. This man 
balanced rations for the calves. He had a dozen books on 
animal husbandry. More than fifty per cent of the farm- 
ers in this community pooled their cabbage and potatoes, 
Every man but one voted against the consolidation of their 
schools. They put on a very successful campaign for the 
eradication of bovine tuberculosis. Although they were 
busy farmers the leaders went from house to house to get 
every man signed up for this cattle test. Those cows that 
reacted to the test were immediately killed. They have 
now what they call “clean herds.” But the teacher, when 
asked about the medical examination in the schools, said: 
“Yes, we have a doctor come each year to examine the 
children, but it amounts to nothing. The children take 
home the examination card, and nothing is ever done about 
it.” Notwithstanding some of these discouraging facts 
the shy woman in the meeting was correct, for the boys 
and girls of that community are its principal crop. 


CLEAN HERDS 


The health of our children should become of greater 
concern to every parent than clean herds. fPublic-health 
officials tell us that with proper child care one third of 
the young lives that are now needlessly sacrificed can be 
saved. ‘T'en nations have a better record in infant health 
than the United States. But parents are becoming much 
interested in improvement as they come to know the facts 
in the case. When mothers learn from public-health 
officials that ten bottle-fed babies die to one fed at the 
breast they quickly undertake to remedy the dangers of 
artificial feeding. Likewise, other methods of child wel- 
fare are now receiving much emphasis, such as fresh air 
for babies, sufficient sleep, absolute protection from flies, 
sleeping alone, daily baths, and the elimination of those 
old disease-carriers which we used to call “pacifiers.” We 


50 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


are learning that a “devoted mother” is not enough; she 
must be an “informed mother” as well. 

The essence of Christian living is service. A Christian 
in the countryside is interested not only in his own chil- 
dren but in the boys and girls of the whole community. 
He is what the newspapers call “a public-spirited citizen.” 
He will not be satisfied with simply examining the ade- 
noids, tonsils, teeth, and eyes of his own children; he will 
back up the medical examination and health classes in the 
school. This will be a part of his everyday religion. A 
keen interest in community health to-day is an indication 
that a Christian man or woman has caught the spirit of 
the Master. 


THE CHILD THE CENTER OF THE HOME 


Jesus placed a child in the midst of his disciples to 
teach them the meaning of the kingdom of heaven. This 
kingdom begins in our homes, where the center of love and 
interest is the children. It is a question whether the chil- 
dren really are the center of a home where they have no 
playroom, but where a large parlor is fitted up for com- 
pany. The parents who naggingly guard their upholstered 
furniture for guests and who provide no playroom for the 
children will not be bothered. after the children reach their 
late teens. Parents who don’t believe in children’s play 
are the ones who later sing, “Oh, where is my wandering 
boy to-night?” An Ohio father shot his boy’s pet pigeons 
one morning. The next morning the boy ran away from 
home. Children must play to grow. Happy is that home 
which bears the marks of children’s play. If you want 
your children to stay on the farm you must give them a 
chance to play on the farm. 

Each evening when he comes home a California father is 
met by his two small sons with the question “What 
shall we three boys play?” One room in this house is a 
playroom. In the back yard are a swing, a sand box, a 
seesaw, and a slide, all of which this father made. The 
children are the center of this home. These same parents 
are always ready to assist with the work of the daily vaca- 
tion church school, because they see the importance of 


child life in kingdom building. 


OUR CHILDREN 51 


A certain mother in New York State takes great delight 
in arranging her house so that the children have a place 
in it. On baking days the children bake something too. 
When she sews, they have a needle and thread. Her buffet 
contains her silver on one side and the children’s play 
dishes on the other. Certain space in the bookcases is 
allotted to the children’s books. She has a desk, and so 
do they. Their pictures hang on the walls of their rooms. 
Cradle Roll certificates and large pictures of cows, trains, 
and engines hang side by side. ‘The children help plan 
the Sunday dinner as well as the picnic lunches. Likewise, 
they take part in the family worship. They always say 
grace at meals in concert. Generally their evening prayer 
includes the sentence, “And we thank thee, Jesus, for our 
happy time at home to-day.” This mother’s greatest joy 
is her children, her highest hope is their future, her great- 
est calling is parenthood. Jesus used people with this atti- 
tude toward children to illustrate what he meant by being 
“the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Sunday-school 
teaching for this mother of three children is not a burden. 
She finds it easy to teach on Sunday what she has been 
practicing all week. 

If our children really became the center of our homes, 
there would be a lot of second-hand furniture for sale. 
Doll furniture and a kiddy kar would take the place of 
some of our “company furniture in the parlor.” The 
“center table,” with its load of breakables, would be stored 
in the attic to make room for children’s play. The garage 
might be used for a playhouse, and the price of the auto- 
mobile might be needed to send John to high school or to 
college. Father would at least spend as much time build- 
ing play equipment for the children as he does tinkering 
with the car. Mother would guard the bedtime story hour 
for her children as carefully as she would any other engage- 
ment. The stories of Peter Rabbit, Little Black Sambo, 
Chicken Little, Epaminondas, the Three Little Pigs, the 
Three Bears, and Little Red Hen would be more familiar 
to her than the ritual of her lodge. The farm would be 
big enough for the children’s pets. Mary’s calf would not 
_ grow up to become someone else’s cow. The parents, 
though burdened with work to keep back the weeds and 


52 <A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


the debts, would still find time for birthday parties and 
children’s picnics. There are a large and increasing num- 
ber of homes that revolve around the interests of the chil- 
dren. “To such belongeth the kingdom of God.” 


CHILDREN THE CENTER OF COMMUNITY LIFE 


Many churches in the open country are conducting daily 
vacation church schools. ‘Trucks are used for bringing the 
children to the church. Paid as well as volunteer workers 
are used. In some of these churches the attendance at 
vacation time is more than a hundred. Boys and girls 
are brought from distances of six or eight miles. These 
churches surely believe that children are the most impor- 
tant factor in community life. You would not say this 
same thing, however, about churches that send the children 
into a damp basement for their Sunday-school instruction. 

Many communities have every possible improvement in 
the school—play equipment for the outdoors, hot lunches 
at noon, sanitary drinking fountains, maps, charts, mov- 
able desks, modern lighting and heating facilities. Yet 
there are other communities where the dairy barn is more 
up to date than the schoolhouse. Here is a schoolhouse 
with the light coming in from four sides. The building 
is on a windy hill and poorly heated. It is reported that 
in one such community on a very cold day the children 
had to go across the road to a school trustee’s barn to get 
warm. 

Here is a village of 858 people. It has six lodges, five 
card clubs, five churches, the G. A. R., the American 
Legion, a good movie theater, a dance hall, a fireman’s 
hall, and a chamber of commerce. But its parent-teacher 
association was disbanded because no one would become 
its president. ‘Three people were elected but refused to 
accept the responsibility. The retiring president said that 
during the year thirty persons had refused to help with 
the monthly meetings. This organization has for its task 
“to promote the best interests of parenthood, to raise the 
standard of home life, to further a better understanding 
and eloser relation between home, school, church, and 
state.” One would hardly say that the children were the 
center of community life in this village. The attitude of 


OUR CHILDREN 83 


the people here is expressed in their buildings. The 
schoolhouse, built twenty-five years ago, is too small for 
an efficient program. There is no room in it for classes 
in home economics, and the only gymnasium in the build- 
ing is in the unfinished attic. There are no classes in 
homemaking in the school “for lack of room,” yet there 
are seven dining rooms and seven kitchens in the lodges 
and churches operated mainly for adults! Any one of the 
lodge dining rooms is large enough to seat the whole 
high school. There is a recreation club for men but none 
for boys. The home bureau—an organization of women 
for home improvement and child welfare—has fifteen mem- 
bers—less than any one of the five lodges or five card clubs. 

Let us examine our own community to see if we put the 
children at the center of community life. Do we give more 
space to playgrounds or to cemeteries? Do we have a 
library or an armory? Do we cushion the pews in the 
church for grown people and send the children to the 
basement to sit on chairs from which their feet do not reach 
the floor? Do we spend money on church music for adults 
or on a director of religious education? Do we spend 
more evenings in the year helping our children in their 
home work than we do in reading about congressional 
investigations and the rise and fall of Kuropean govern- 
ments? Our first responsibility is the rise or fall of our 
own. little republic—that is, our home and the group of 
homes which make up our community. When the disci- 
ples thought they were too busy to give any time to the 
children, their intentions were good, no doubt; but Jesus 
rebuked them and showed us the right relation of children 
to his kingdom. 


THE Home, A SENDING STATION OF IDEALS 


A five-year-old boy once crawled halfway up the roof 
of his father’s garage and finally persuaded the busy father 
to help him to the top. He then dismissed his father, 
saying, “I just want to sit here and look.” Later, when 
the father returned, the boy’s eyes were wandering from 
hill to hill, from tree to field, from house to distant lake, 
and on around the circling horizon. Finally, with the joy 


54 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


and ecstasy of one who had made a great new discovery, he 
exclaimed, “Daddy, I can see the whole world from here!” 

Through the eyes of childhood, as a result of home 
teaching, from the background of one’s early experience, 
the whole world is seen. The attitudes our children get 
at home determine their future usefulness. They see the 
world of work according to the habits of work they get 
at home. They share with other people and become min- 
istering philanthropists in later life if they learn the prin- 
ciple of sharing around the home fireside. They save and 
spend carefully according to their early lessons. Their 
health curve is determined early by their mother’s care. 
They can work with neighbors later if they get along with 
youthful playmates. If their early Sabbaths are happy 
family affairs they will bring with them each week a flood 
of sacred memories. If religion is real, spontaneous, sim- 
ple, and childlike in their formative years it will shape 
life’s later ideals and attitudes. This, Jesus told us, is the 
way the kingdom of heaven grows. 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 


1. A girl won three hundred dollars in prizes one sum- 
mer at county fairs. When her parents told her she could 
do as she pleased with this money she gave it all to a 
home for crippled children. How does she illustrate Bible 
verses in this lesson? | 

2. A cattle buyer in a small village died recently and 
arranged through his will for his entire fortune—fifty 
thousand dollars—to be used to build a mausoleum over his 
grave. According to our Scripture lesson for to-day did 
he achieve greatness? 

3. In a humble home in a certain isolated hilly com- 
munity lives a woman who raised her own family, took 
care of her brother’s two orphans, and then adopted a 
homeless boy from a reform school. Nobody speaks of 
her as being great. What do you think of her religion? 

4, A little village with well-painted homes and attrac- 
tive lawns each year holds a historical exhibit at which 
antique furniture and aged relics of all kinds are shown. 
Histories of the past recounting family trees and early 
settlers are read. In this same community the junior- 


OUR CHILDREN 5d 


project leader could organize no boys’ or girls’ clubs 
because he could find no local leader willing to take charge 
of them. Where is this community’s greatness? 

5. A small daughter in the home of a college professor 
selected as her special playmates children from one of the 
poorest homes in the community. Had this girl been well 
trained ? 

6. We hear considerable about the coming of the mil- 
lennium. As to determining when it shall come what 
would you think of one entire generation of children loved | 
as they ask to be, understood as they expect to be, and 
trained as they should. be? 


CHAPTER VI 
FARM BUSINESS 


PROSPEROUS FARMERS 


Wuew the Israelites crossed over the Jordan into the 
Promised Land they changed from nomadic herdsmen to 
dirt farmers. If they could learn to obey, they were 
promised many blessings—good crops, increasing herds, 
full granaries, children, and money to loan out at interest. 


SCRIPTURE LESSON 


Deut. 28. 1-12. 

1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently 
unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to observe to do all his 
commandments which I command thee this day, that Jehovah 
thy God will set thee on high above all the nations of the 
earth: 2 and all these blessings shall come upon thee, and 
overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of Jehovah 
thy God. 3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed 
shalt thou be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy 
body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy beasts, 
the increase of thy cattle, and the young of thy flock. 5 
Blessed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough. 6 
Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt 
thou be when thou goest out. 

7 Jehovah will cause thine enemies that rise up against 
thee to be smitten before thee: they shall come out against 
thee one way, and shall flee before thee seven ways. 8 Jehovah 
will command the blessing upon thee in thy barns, and in all 
that thou puttest thy hand unto; and he will bless thee in 
the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee. 9 Jehovah will 
establish thee for a holy people unto himself, as he hath 
sworn unto thee; if thou shalt keep the commandments of 
Jehovah thy God, and walk in his ways. 10 And all the peo- 
ples of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name 
of Jehovah; and they shall be afraid of thee. 11 And 
Jehovah will make thee plenteous for good, in the fruit of thy 
body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy 
ground, in the land which Jehovah sware unto thy fathers 
to give thee. 12 Jehovah will open unto thee his good treasure 
the heavens, to give the rain of thy land in its season, and 


56 


FARM BUSINESS 5? 


to bless all the work of thy hand: and thou shalt lend unto 
many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. 


This Scripture lesson shows us the importance of obedi- 
ence to God’s commands. Our neighborhood. becomes the 
Holy Land when those who dwell in it have learned obedi- 
ence to God’s laws. Jesus summed up these Old Testa- 
ment commandments in two verses for us: “Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The 
second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 
There is none other commandment greater than these” 
(Mark 12. 30-31). We are to love and obey God and to 
_ show a Christian spirit toward our neighbor. 


Our Next-Door NEIGHBOR 


As Jesus explained in a parable, our neighbor is not at 
the other end of the Jericho road but is near at hand. His 
farm perhaps joins ours. It is his cattle that crawl through 
the line fence and get into our cornfield. How do we act 
when they do? Does the neighborly spirit between our- 
selves and the owner of the cows break down? Our reli- 
gion receives a severe test when the neighbor’s chickens 
seratch up our garden, or when his children romp over our 
new furniture. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” 
is the way Jesus put it. If we do this we shall show a 
Christian spirit in all our dealings with the neighbor on 
the adjoining farm, we shall fix the pen before our hogs 
break out and get into his sweet-potato patch, we won’t 
let our children take advantage of his good disposition, 
we shall keep our weeds, as well as our livestock, at home. 

This Christian attitude toward near neighbors is seen 
nowhere better than in many farming communities. Let 
someone get sick, and in come the neighbors to see if 
there is something they can do. One woman, insists on 
taking the children over to her house. Another stays to 
get dinner for the men, and a third drops in to leave an 
especially prepared dish. The men don’t say so much 
about it, but before long they all come over and plow 
the sick man’s field or put up his hay. 

Yet new problems are coming up each year—problems 


58 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


that call for a new application of Christian neighborliness. 
We must love our neighbor as ourself after he gets well, 
and we are trading horses with him, renting him land, or 
lending him money. If we agree with him to plant wheat 
late to escape the Hessian fly we must not forget our 
agreement and think that our one field won’t make any 
difference. Stories are numerous of neighbors agreeing 
to limit the cotton acreage in order to exterminate the 
boll weevil and. then planting cotton in every field, lot, and 
fence row. Christianizing our neighborhood relations is 
the second half of what Jesus called the greatest com- 
mandment. | 

In northern New York State there has been much 
preaching of special religious blessings. Holiness has been 
emphasized, and there have been many “mountain-top 
experiences” ; but the federal authorities are having a most 
difficult time to get the blister rust eradicated from the 
pine woods there, because the neighbors don’t think enough 
of one another to stick together and to follow certain well- 
tested methods. As one officer described the situation, 
“You might just as well tell an Eskimo to put up ice as 
to ask these lumbermen to help each other save the for- 
ests.” He also said the pine rust had increased fifty per 
cent in one year and was destined to exterminate those 
beautiful pine woods unless the neighbors would pull 
together. “Bootleggers’ paradise’ and camp-meeting 
grounds should not be in the same section of the State. 
Christian living is a man-sized job if we apply it. A 
neighborhood organized a community club and bought a 
hall in which to practice sociability and then quarreled 
over who was to wash the dishes. A pastor of a country 
church organized his men into a community-improvement 
club, but this minister’s successor complained because the 
club used up so much coal at its meetings. Christianizing 
our close neighborhood contacts is a challenge to our 
church. Hradicating sin is the first step toward God, but 
he who has been cleansed should help his neighbors save 
the lives of babies by eradicating tuberculosis from his 
dairy herd. A clean herd helps to keep a man’s conscience 
clean. A Christian neighbor has a written contract instead 
of a lawsuit, a receipt instead of a dispute, a will instead 


FARM BUSINESS 59 


of a family quarrel. He gets along with people. He has 
the kind of religion to live by as well as to die by. 


THe TENANT 


The man with whom we have more dealings than with 
anyone else is our tenant. How do we treat him? Hvery 
third farmer in the United States is renting his farm. 
In those States where there are the most tenants—lowa, 
Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio—the largest number of 
abandoned country churches are to be found. ‘There are 
about one thousand closed rural churches in each of these 
States. Fences and buildings, churches and schools, run 
down where we rent the old farm and move to town. Ten- 
ancy is neither good for the land nor for the community. 
The bad effects of tenancy in Palestine were prevented by 
the law that made every piece of land revert to its original 
owner every fifty years. A few speculators were thus pre- 
vented from owning large tracts of land and renting them 
out. The law regulating this says, “And ye shall hallow 
the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land 
unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto 
you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, 
and ye shall return every man unto his family” (Lev. 
25. 10). God undoubtedly wants his people to be good 
farmers, or else we should not find in the Mosaic law so 
many rules about farming. 

The attitude of superiority of one owner toward a tenant 
is shown by the following incident: 

The community was discussing the advisability of organ- 
izing a social club. The owner’s wife said: “If the people 
around here want something to go to, let them buy a car 
and go to town. That’s what we do. Besides, we have a 
radio. We hear everything on it—how to dress, the weather 
reports, concerts, and everything. I wish I were home 
to-night listening to a concert from Pittsburgh.” 

The wife of the tenant spoke rather timidly in favor of 
such a club. “If we had a club here in the neighborhood, 
I could walk to it,” she said. “It seems that now we only 
have about one thing a year here, and that’s Christmas.” 

A Christian attitude toward our tenant and a concern 


60 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


for his church and his children’s school will be necessary 
to keep the church in the open country a vital force. 


WorKING WitH Our NEIGHBORS 


No name is more identified with the improvement of 
farm life than that of Bishop Grundtvig, of Denmark. 
A destructive war had left his country bankrupt, and 
another war was brewing with Germany. His people were 
discouraged. Their spiritual life was at a low ebb, as 1s 
always the case after a war. He decided, however, that 
reforms must come from within, that his people must work 
out their own salvation. Two methods were chosen. Folk 
high schools and agricultural schools were established. 
Adults as well as young men and young women could 
attend these schools while living and working on their 
farms. In the second place, cooperative societies were 
formed among the farmers for handling their produce. 
They cooperate in buying pure-bred livestock. They make 
their pork into bacon, their milk into butter and cheese, 
entirely by cooperative action. They have savings-and- 
Joan associations and mutual-insurance societies. As a 
result of their buying and selling cooperatively the people 
of Denmark have the highest per-capita wealth of any 
European country. Their land, which had been worn out 
by continual grain farming, has now become the most 
productive of any nation in Kurope. In Denmark it is said, 
“There are only a few who have too much, and still fewer 
who have too little.” 

But the cooperative spirit—the ability to work with our 
neighbors—is not something to be imported into rural 
America from Denmark; it is an attitude, a spirit of team- 
work, a neighborly feeling, something that we must culti- 
vate and learn to do by doing. In order for neighbors 
to work together we must have the Christian attitude of 
sacrificing our own preferences to serve the larger group. 
A group of men sat around a table one evening forming a 
cooperative association. They had discussed the principles 
of successful cooperation—that is, each man should get 
only one vote and not vote according to the amount of 
stock a man owns. ‘They all seemed to be clear on the 
purpose of organizing—to perform a service rather than 


FARM BUSINESS 61 


to get profits. They had emphasized duties and obliga- 
tions rather than rights and personal advantages. They 
also agreed to the method of prorating the earnings accord- 
ing to the amount of business done with the association. 
When they thought everything was agreed upon, one of 
the most influential men spoke up and said: “I’m willing 
to cooperate. I believe init. But the only way I’m willing 
to cooperate is on my terms.” He had everything neces- 
sary for cooperating except the Christian spirit of sacrifice 
in order to serve the larger number. 

One of the ways farmers work together to-day is through 
the county farm bureau. The first bureau to be organized 
was in Broome County, New York, in 1911. Now more 
than twenty-four hundred counties have similar organiza- 
tions. Through this county farm bureau neighbors 
work together for soil improvement, for better farm man- 
agement, for the development of more profitable livestock, 
and for better crops and markets. It is our religious 
principles, our Christian attitudes, that give us the spirit 
of service, which makes us good cooperators. In one rural 
county five communities were studied. In religious life 
and successful church work the communities ranked as 
follows: 

Wadhams, first. Keesville, third. 


Reber, second, Jay, fourth. 
Whallonsburg, fifth 


The percentage of farmers in these communities who 
belonged to the farm bureau was as follows: 
Wadhams, 54 per cent. Keesville, 30 per cent. 


Reber, 32 per cent. Jay, 22 per cent. 
Whallonsburg, 16 per cent. 


The neighborly, cooperative spirit, which our religion helps 
us to get, is the attitude a community must have to join 
the farm bureau or other similar organizations. Project 
leaders in the home bureau or in home-ecoromics groups 
are nearly always active church workers. 


CooPERATION IN AMERICA 


Cooperation in farm business is needed in America when 
a man says, as a farmer in Ohio did recently: “No, we 


62 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


don’t sell anything together. If I heard that one of my 
neighbors was going to sell a load of apples I’'d get up 
before daylight and beat him to town.” Religion should 
change the selfishness in that community into neigh- 
borliness. 

Cooperation saves money. In asmall town in the Middle 
West there is a man who buys and ships cattle and hogs. 
He must make a living for his family and pay his hired 
help. He must also feed the stock he buys until he gets a 
carload lot. All this expense comes out of the profits of 
the farmers who sell to him. In a neighboring town is 
a cooperative shipping association. This organization 
announces a day when their members shall bring their 
livestock to the cars for shipping. All the expense of the 
individual buyer is saved, and in addition the members 
of the association have the experience of a successful and 
neighborly venture, 

Jt has been estimated that the farmers of Minnesota 
save a million dollars a year by cooperative marketing. 
They reduce the handling costs by concentrating the busi- 
ness. Through the sale of certain commodities coopera- 
tively a market sometimes can be found where there is 
none otherwise. Through the grading and packing of 
produce, especially fruit, according to certain accepted 
standards a higher price is obtained for it. And espe- 
cially cooperation gets a community to think in terms of 
“us” and “ours” instead of “me” and “mine.” 'The fam- 
ilies in some communities seem to have nothing in com- 
mon except latitude and longitude. ‘They live at the same 
place but they think only of themselves. Yet there are 
enough farmers in the United States with this unselfish 
attitude who are pulling together in cooperative associa- 
tions to sell more than two billion dollars’ worth of produce 
a year. 

Cooperation is an index of community loyalty. Some- 
times one goes into a neighborhood, and someone begins 
like this: “The trouble with this community is”’—and 
then tells you all its shortcomings. Suppose this man’s 
neighbors had just helped him thresh his wheat or fill his 
silo or butcher or put up hay or stack his oats or care for 
his sick: he would have forgotten their faults.) When 


FARM BUSINESS 63 


people belong to the same grange or farm bureau or farm- 
ers’ union they are more loyal to one another, more neigh- 
borly. In a community where the people have a good 
strong church they are more likely to cooperate in building 
good, hard-surfaced roads. Mud holes and poor churches 
are close kin. A study was made by the writer of ninety 
townships in Ohio to discover the relation between 
good roads and church attendance. ‘These townships were 
divided into four groups: those with poor roads, with the. 
poorest, the better, and the best. The divisions were made 
according to the number of miles of improved roads. It 
was found that the group with the most miles of improved 
roads had nearly twice as many church members for each 
township. The summary of this study is as follows: 


Church members Members 
per township per church 


90 townships Improved roads (average) (average) 
22 no miles 303 55.9 
23 44 miles 346 56.0 
22 174 miles 375 63.1 
23 490 miles 501 100.3 


The churches had taught the neighborly spirit, so that the 
people could work together in improving their roads. 


SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 


In the Scripture reading for this lesson we learn that 
God promised prosperity to the Israelites if they obeyed 
his laws. God’s laws regarding the care of the soil, the 
selection of pure seed, the proper concern for livestock, 
are what we usually call scientific agriculture. In the 
book of Leviticus the people were commanded to keep pure- 
bred stock and to keep the scrubs out of the herds. “Ye 
shall keep my statutes. ‘Thou shalt not let the cattle 
gender with a diverse kind” (Lev. 19. 9). The farmer 
to-day who culls his poultry flock and takes out the poor 
layers, who tests his cows for butter fat and sells the poor 
producers for beef, is obeying this commandment in the 
book of Leviticus. 

In this same chapter the Israelites were commanded to 
sow only pure seed in their fields. ““Thou shalt not sow thy 


64 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


field with two kinds of seed,” says the command. The 
successful farmer of to-day not only must cooperate with 
his neighbor in marketing but is a colaborer with God in 
producing the world’s food supply. To keep from wearing 
out the soil the best farmers of to-day rotate their crops 
and use plenty of fertilizer. The law the Israelites fol- 
lowed to keep from robbing the soil was to give the land a 
complete rest every seven years. “But in the seventh year 
shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath 
unto Jehovah: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune 
thy vineyard” (Lev. 25. 4). When a man properly drains 
his land, carefully selects his seed, testing it sometimes, 
plows deeply, keeps it free from weeds and pests, fertilizes 
the soil, rotates his crops, and harvests his grain with 
improved machinery, we say he is a scientific farmer. The 
God who sends the harvest has certain laws. Learning 
these, we increase our yield. Being a good farmer simply 
means following these laws about the soil and seed, about 
cultivating and harvesting. Being a good farmer is there- 
fore one way of obeying God’s laws. 


CoLABORERS WITH Gop 


We sometimes wonder about our own religion. Is it 
sufficient to live by as well as to die by? Let us test it by 
the way we get along with our neighbors. Let us see if 
we have learned obedience so that we can work together. 
Do we obey the laws of God in the way we farm our fields 
and care for our stock? Do we cooperate with God in 
helping to feed his creatures? Blessed is he who is con- 
scious of God’s presence with him in his daily work. 


THE CoUNTRY CHURCH 


“T stand in the fields, 
Where the wide earth yields 

Her bounties of fruit and grain; 
Where the furrows turn 
Till the plowshares burn 

As they come ’round and ’round again; 
Where the workers pray 
With their tools all day 

In sunshine and shadow and rain, 


FARM BUSINESS 65 


“And I bid them tell 
Of the crops they sell 
And speak of the work they have done; 
I speed every man 
In his hope and plan 
And follow his day with the sun; 
And grasses and trees, 
The birds and the bees, 
I know and I feel every one. 


“And out of it all, 
As the seasons fall, 
I build my great temple alway; 
I point to the skies, 
But my footstone lies 
In commonplace work of the day; 
For I preach the worth 
Of the native earth— 
To love and to work is to pray.” 
—L. H. Bailey. 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 


1. What laws in the book of Leviticus mentioned in 
this lesson relate to better farming? See Ley. 19. 19; 
25. 4; 25. 10. 

2. What were the Israelites told they must do as they 
crossed over the Jordan into the Holy Land? See the 
Scripture lesson for to-day. 

3. Which is easier—to give money to help the people 
on the other side of the world or to show a Christian spirit 
toward one’s next-door neighbor ? 

4, A small group of women withdrew from a home 
bureau and organized a unit of their own. They put a 
notice in the paper saying they “would take orders from 
no one.” What have you to say about their neighborly 
spirit? 

5. An officer in a church was greatly angered when he 
was made to test his dairy cows for tuberculosis. How 
did he illustrate the second part of what Jesus called the 
greatest commandment? 

6. A church official once proudly said: “We have a fine 
church. We all own our farms. Hardly a tenant belongs 
to our church.” What do you think about his religion? 

%. Explain why the communities with the best churches, 


66 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


mentioned in this lesson, had the largest percentage of 
farmers in the farm bureau. 

8. In a certain rural community the only public insti- 
tution is the school. There is no grange, no club, no 
lodge, no public building but the schoolhouse, which is 
more than a hundred years old. Does the fact that there 
is no church here help to explain the situation? How? 

9. What attitude would laymen take if ministers in our 
country should champion the cause of agricultural coop- 
eration, as Bishop Gundtvig did in Denmark? 

10. Why are farmers, as a general rule, more religious 
than people living in large cities? 

11. An old man once refused to listen to the instruction 
of a county agent. “That young fellow can’t teach me 
anything,” he said. “I’ve worn out three farms already.” 
What was wrong with his viewpoint? 

12. Explain Pharaoh’s dream (Gen. 41. 1-4) in the 
light of present-day dairying. 

13. What do we usually mean by the term “everyday 
religion”? Do you know people who have it? 


CHAPTER VII 
RELIGION IN PRACTICE 


THE way a man deals with his tenant, sells his produce, 
lends his money, forecloses the mortgage, weighs and 
measures his crops, treats his competitor in business,— 
all these are an index of his Christian life. In our homes, 
at our work, is where religion begins. A man spends about 
three thousand hours a year at his daily work and about 
one hundred hours a year in church. The Old Testament 
prophets spoke very plainly on this question of everyday 
religion. 

SCRIPTURE LESSON 
Amos 8. 4-6. 


4 Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and 
cause the poor of the land to fail, 5 saying, When will the 
new moon be gone, that we may Sell grain? and the sabbath, 
that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and 
the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit; 
6 that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a 
pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat? 


Micah 2. 1-2. 


1 Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon 
their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, be- 
cause it is in the power of their hand. 2 And they covet 
fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and 
they oppress a@ man and his house, even a man and his 
heritage. 


Micah 6. 8. 


He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth 
Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kind- 
ness, and to walk humbly with thy God? 


TAKING ADVANTAGE OF A NEIGHBOR 


Christian living is not a creed; it is the way we treat 
folks. A builder who paints a new house beautifully and 
papers the inside with fine wall paper but builds it poorly 

67 


68 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


is taking unfair advantage of the man who buys the house. 
Jerry builders are poor neighbors and poor Christians. 

An editor who writes an article against rotten politicians 
and decries graft in Wall Street but who prints on another 
page an advertisement of some patent medicine that sells 
for a dollar, costs seven cents, and may do seven dollars’ 
worth of harm is taking unfair advantage of his readers. 

A landlord who rents unsanitary shacks that ruin the 
health of tenants’ children is just as bad as the tenant 
who moves out between suns to keep from paying the rent. 
Kach thinks himself better than the other. They are both 
taking unfair advantage. We call the owner a “rook” 
and the tenant a “crook.” 

A farmer in Georgia may go to revival meetings during 
the entire months of July and August, but if he keeps his 
Negro cropper in a state of peonage he is the very man 
to whom Amos is speaking when he says: “Hear this, O 
ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor 
of the land to fail!” 

A retired farmer in Iowa who exacts all he can get from 
his renter and thinks not at all of the needs of the rent- 
er’s family, the renter’s school, his church, the lack of 
screens on the house, the man’s future in this world as 
well as in the next, though’ this landlord has his name 
on the church roll he is a lability in the kingdom of 
good will. He may meet his renter in the next world, 
but between them there may be a great gulf—the same 
that was between Lazarus and the rich man. 

The politician who shakes hands with people after he is 
elected, the preacher who talks as straight about the sins 
of his members as he does about the sins of the Jews, the 
plumber who comes the day he says he will, the merchant 
who labels part-wool goods by their proper name, the 
straightforward, everyday, shirt-sleeved, kitchen-door, 
blue-Monday Christian is the man that is making the 
world better. 


PRETENDING PIEty 
A certain ruler who made himself believe he had kept 


every one of the commandments came to Jesus once, call- 
ing him “good Teacher” and trying to make certain that 


RELIGION IN PRACTICE 69 


he would inherit eternal life. He had got and kept every- 
thing he could in this world and was trying to make sure 
of an estate in heaven. Jesus told this orthodox rich man 
to sell out and begin the unselfish life if he wanted to be 
really pious. But this man’s piety was only a pretense, 
for he went back home with a long face and hung on to 
his riches. 

A man in Pennsylvania would not come to the Sunday- 
evening service, because the preacher of the day in his 
morning sermon had used an illustration drawn from a 
baseball game. The visiting minister, inquiring about 
this ultraorthodox member, learned that he prohibited his 
daughter from playing basketball at high school, claiming 
that “we as Christians should not engage in such worldly 
affairs.” But this same man spent considerable time dur- 
ing the week trading horses; and, while the grocers con- 
sidered him “a very strict church member,” they would 
not sell him goods on credit. Amos speaks of the people 
who, while strictly observing religious obligations on Sun- 
day, are looking forward longingly to the next day, when 
they can get hold of more of this world’s riches. “When 
will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? and 
the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?’ 

Instead of praying so often, “Lord, bless us,” “keep us 
from harm,” and “finally save us in heaven,” why not say, 
“Lord, give me enough grace to pay my debts and deal 
fairly with my neighbors; to put the best berries in the 
bottom of the box instead of on the top; to tell the truth 
about my property to the tax assessor; and to lay up 
treasures in heaven” ? 

The manufacturers of a great Hastern city supported 
the Young Women’s Christian Association until it began 
to preach against the bad working conditions, the long 
hours, and wages insufficient to allow girls to live healthy, 
moral lives. Then the organization of employers boycotted 
the association. Their earlier gifts were simply pretenses 
at piety. Their charity was a salve for their injustice. 
Clean linen and churchgoing cannot be substitutes for 
honesty. 

The head of a social settlement in New York resigned, 
because his trustees asked a man to give to the settlement 


70 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


money which the worker considered “tainted.” The rich 
man hesitated to give the money because he was afraid 
the settlement was “irreligious.” The wealthy man’s 
daughter, in excusing her father, said, “My father has 
always been a very devout man.” Of both the settlement 
worker and the rich man could it be said that they 
“strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!’ 

When our pastor gets hot on the scent of sin in our 
community, let us not drag anything across the trail. Let 
us not urge him to preach about “the good old days,” “the 
old-time religion,” “the simple gospel,” or “the faith of 
our fathers.” We know we are simply trying to sidetrack 
him from talking about our own sins. Let us not pretend 
to be good while our hand is in someone’s pocket. When 
Jesus met the money changers in the Temple he treated 
them rough. Let us be orthodox in conduct as well as 
in creed. 


DISHONEST WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 


Everybody knows the command “Thou shalt not steal,” 
but some men will put the brake on the wagon while 
weighing a load of corn and let the horses lean against the 
collars. Or they will always be on the seat when the load 
is weighed but off when the wagon is empty. A Christian 
can give his testimony on the scales Monday morning when 
he is weighing his wheat as well as at the church on Sun- 
day. A church member who gives his cattle salt Sunday 
night so that they will drink more water Monday morning 
before the buyer drives them on the scales is the same 
type of a man that Amos described: “Making the ephah 
small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with bal- 
ances of deceit.” ‘The ephah contained more than three 
pecks—when someone did not cut it off a little at the top. 
Amos’ neighbors used scales with weights that might be 
tampered with. ‘The shekel contained about sixty-four 
cents’ worth of money—when some trader did not make 
the other poor man pile on a little more. Jesus described 
this sort of getting ahead. He said such a man was like 
a thorny field. “These are they that have heard the word, 
and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, 

. choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” 


RELIGION IN PRACTICE 71 


STEPPING ON THE MAN THaT Is Down 


A contractor in a Philadelphia suburb notified his 
employees one day that there would be no more work for 
them ; but he did not pay them off. ‘Come back in a week,” 
he said, “to get your wages.” Seven days later they 
returned but were paid nothing. He advised them to 
employ a lawyer to settle their case. The attorney, with 
whom he had made previous arrangements, advised the 
workmen to compromise for half their wages to save the 
expense of a lawsuit. These men, who had been building 
roads for our new automobiles, lost their jobs, lost two or 
three days’ work trying to collect their pay, and had to 
pay a lawyer out of the half of the wages they did get. 
“Tf you don’t like America,” we say to them, “why don’t 
you go back home?” Our Christianity is tested by the 
way we treat people who cannot defend themselves. When 
they are across the ocean, we may send them missionaries ; 
when they are on this side, do we deal as sympathetically 
with them? Amos spoke about this taking advantage of 
people. “That we may buy the poor for silver, and the 
needy for a pair of shoes.” 


ADULTERATION 


There was no temptation to put water in the milk when 
everyone kept a cow. When every house had a garden, no 
one thought of putting the best fruit on top of the basket. 
In the days of homespun, shoddy goods were scarce. Now- 
adays we buy and sell instead of raising things for our 
own use. With all this increased buying and selling there 
are new opportunities for adulteration and short-changing 5 
but if we want to find downright, heaped-up, all-wool 
honesty, we shall usually find it in the country and in the 
small village. 

We do not mean to be dishonest in dealing with folks; 
we simply want to drive a good bargain, make a slick 
trade, or come out clear on a bad deal. We forget that 
this is sin. 

We have a horse with a sweeny or spavin. As we cannot 
use him we put on a “poker face,” pretend he is all right, 


72 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


and sell him to a neighbor, We get rid of the horse, but 
what a conscience we get instead ! 

We test our cows’ milk, pick out the “star boarders,” 
and sell them. We make our mistake in selling them to a 
neighbor for milch cows instead of to the butcher for beef. 

A fisherman on the east coast of Maryland makes a 
catch of mud shad. It is all right to sell these if he tells 
what they are; but to sell them for real shad, which are 
worth three times as much, is the point where dishonesty 
comes in. 

Let us use the cracked eggs at home and throw away 
the bad ones instead of trying to sneak them in with the 
good eggs when we sell them on Saturday afternoon. “Sell- 
ing the refuse of the wheat” is the way Amos summed up 
all such dishonesty. 


STEALING From THE LANDLORD 


Two sisters in Pennsylvania were married, and their 
husbands, who were good friends, rented neighboring 
farms. Mabel’s husband seemed to be getting ahead at 
first. He even bought an automobile. But soon his land- 
lord discovered that he was keeping more than his share 
of the crops and asked him’ to move off. His reputation 
went with him; so the next man would rent to him only 
for cash. He was found to be depleting the soil here, 
selling or burning the straw instead of putting it back 
into the land, and not buying the needed fertilizer. Again 
he had to move. Stella’s husband never took advantage 
of his landlord, never had to move, and has now bought 
the farm he had been renting. Micah said: “Woe to 
them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! 
when the morning is light, they practice it.” 

John the Baptist said, “Extort no more than that which 
is appointed you.” Jesus told of a farmer whose vision 
was centered on his own barns and granaries. “Thou 
foolish one” were the words Jesus used in the parable 
about him. 

A man preached a sermon one day against big corpora- 
tions that mix air with the gas when they sell it and thus 
steal from the housewives; but this same preacher, going 


RELIGION IN PRACTICE 73 


from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, when he found that it is 
against the law to sell a reduced clergy ticket between 
cities in Pennsylvania, but that one can be bought into 
or out of the State, went across into Wilmington, Dela- 
ware, to buy his ticket. He “got by” all right; but how 
did he treat the big corporation? The mother who holds 
her seven-year-old daughter on her lap when the conductor 
comes through the train and tells him her daughter is five 
should never punish this girl for lying. 

Money often chains men, clips their wings, stunts their 
consciences, keeps down their ideals. We can pluck the 
sting out of money by being four-square, up-and-down, 
all-the-time honest in all our dealings. 


CARRYING OFF A FARM 


Ahab has always had a bad reputation because he took 
the life of his neighbor, Naboth, to get his vineyard. 
To-day we do not follow Ahab’s method. We get our 
neighbor’s farm by foreclosing a mortgage. If our neigh- 
bor is a Negro in Mississippi we might simply serve notice 
on him to sell out. On the other hand, we might steal a 
farm from our children simply by depleting the soil. If 
I plant cotton or tobacco on the same field for thirty years 
I have robbed the soil of its fertility and my children of 
a farm. Loose, sloping soil must be terraced or sown to 
grass or “cover” crops, else the soil will wash away. 
“Coveting fields” and “seizing them” were ways in which, 
Micah said, we could “oppress a man and his heritage.” 


“His Worp Is as Goop as His Bonn” 


This is another way of saying that a man is abso- 
lutely honest and truthful. We often say “a professing 
Christian.” May we not also use the phrase “a practicing 
Christian”? In our Lord’s Prayer we say, “Forgive us 
our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” 
Should we not also pray, “Fulfill thy promises to us as 
we keep our promises to our employees, our family, our 
neighbors, and our church”? “What doth Jehovah require 
of thee... but to do justly?” said Micah. Stealing 
church members during a union revival meeting is not 


74 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


doing justly any more than is stealing cattle on the plains 
of Wyoming. 

Jesus enters our lives and makes us want to be honest. 
He entered the home of Zaccheus, a hated Jericho pub- 
lican, who had saved up a lot out of the taxes he had been 
collecting. When Jesus left that home, the tax collector 
stood up and said, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods 
I give to the poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught 
of any man, I restore fourfold.” 


CHRISTIAN ALL THE Way THROUGH 


A papyrus leaf recently brought to the British Museum 
from Egypt contained among other sayings of Jesus: 
“Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me; cleave 
the wood, and I am there.” We find Christ, says this 
ancient quotation, everywhere. The disciples found him 
when they were fishing. The Samaritan woman found him 
when she was carrying water. We meet him in our human 
relations, in our social fellowships. We find him by “doing 
justly” and by “loving kindness.” 

The New Testament gospel is contained in the doings 
of Jesus as truly as in his sayings. When John became 
despondent and doubted if Jesus were the Christ, our 
Lord told the messengers to go back and tell John the 
things they had seen him do. If the same kind of a 
committee should come to see if we are his followers, let 
us hope that we shall be practicing justice and kindness 
and walking humbly with our God. 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 


1. Are we proud of the way neighbors treat one another 
in our community ? 

2. What was wrong with the religion of the horse trader 
in Pennsylvania who was described in this chapter? 

3. Were the sins of the people in the time of Amos 
different from those of to-day? 

4, What have you to say about an officer in a country 
church who, when he starts to market, always puts his 
best produce on the top and the worst on the bottom? 


RELIGION IN PRACTICE 75 


5. In what way do we rob God by the way we take care 
of the soil on our farms? 

6. Illustrate from the life of Zacchzeus how contact with 
Jesus makes us desire to be honest. 

% What do you think of the policy of the manufac- 
turers who supported the Young Women’s Christian Asso- 
ciation until it advocated better working conditions for 
the young women employees? 


CHAPTER VIII 
CIVIC DUTIES 


Ir is our civic duty to be good Christians. Likewise, it 
is our Christian duty to enforce the laws—that is, to 
assume civic responsibilities in our neighborhood and to 
make it a better place in which to live. 

In some churches we sing, 


“Onward, Christian soldiers! 
Marching as to war,” 


and then we close the book, sit down, and go to sleep 
while bootleggers flourish in our backwoods. Canaan 
proved to be a land of bloodshed and battle instead of milk 
and honey. After comforting ourselves at a camp meeting 
with thoughts of eternal rest it might be well to run for 
office in our township or county and produce a clean 
administration, The monks of the Middle Ages, believing 
that home was an evil institution, went off into the desert 
by themselves to be holy, while the world settled back into 
the Dark Ages. Good Christians to-day see graft among 
civic officials; but when the election comes, some Chris- 
tians say, “After you, sir,” to every aspirant running for 
public office—that is, if said aspirant belongs to their 
political party. We need less handshaking just before 
election day and more crusading. We sing, “Jesus paid it 
all,” and then often fail to support the institutions in our 
community that are fighting evil. Let us “take up our 


cross” and follow after Him. If we get into the job of 


cleaning up our community and keeping it clean we shall 
have so many bruises on our heads that a halo would feel 
uncomfortable. Jesus said, “He that doth not take his 
cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me.” 

To study righteousness in the Sunday school and go 
the next day to a baseball game where gambling is allowed 
is like sewing a new piece of cloth upon an old garment. 

76 


CIVIC DUTIES ra 


It is a poor-looking job and is likely to tear. To have a 
successful revival and let the converts get filled up the 
next month on bad movies or questionable public dances 
is very poor business. ‘T’o get sinners saved without driving 
sin out of the community is like mopping up the water 
without turning off the faucet from whence the water 
comes. 
SCRIPTURE LESSON 
Matt. 5. 10-16. 


10 Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteous- 
ness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed 
are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and 
say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12 
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in 
heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets that were before 


you. 

13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost 
its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good 
for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of 
men. 14 Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill 
cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a lamp, and put it 
under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shineth unto all 
that are in the house. 16 Even so let your light shine before 
men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your 
Father who is in heaven. 


Luke 5. 36-39. 


36 And he spake also a parable unto them: No man rendeth 
a piece from a new garment and putteth it upon an old gar- 
ment; else he will rend the new, and also the piece from 
the new will not agree with the old. 37 And no man putteth 
new wine into old wine-skins; else the new wine will burst 
the skins, and itself will be spilled, and the skins will perish. 
38 But new wine must be put into fresh wine-skins. 39 And 
no man having drunk old wine desireth new; for he saith, 
The old is good. 


THE Oxp Is Goop 


The man in Arkansas who prefers to have ague rather 
than drain the swamps is satisfied. He prefers malaria 
to new-fangled ideas. “The old is good.” 

The people who prefer bad roads with mud holes and 
“thank-you-marms” do not want to be bothered with a 
road-bond issue. They prefer a stuck-in-the-mud neigh- 
borhood. Paying road taxes does not appeal to them. 

No one wants the school children to suffer from poor 


« 


78 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


health, but “we never have had medical examination in 
the schools: why begin now ?” 

The old jail is unsanitary, the old church is unsightly, 
the old schoolhouse is uncomfortable; but “please let me 
alone.” “The old is good.” 

The boys are loafing around town; the immoral 
“skunks” are still whittling dry-goods boxes and peddling 
bad stories; the neighbor on the next farm has a still in 
his woods and is ruining the youth with his home-made 
booze; the street carnival or county fair is getting worse 
each year; some automobile drivers are ignoring the law. 
Don’t you think we need a new sheriff or constable, a new 
judge or justice of the peace? Perhaps so, but “election 
always comes when I am busy.” Anyhow, the old officers 
suit me. “The old is good.” 

Being satisfied with the old is one of the most respectable 
forms of no-accountness. In class meeting at church we 
talk like angels; but when something needs to be done 
to clean up the community, we are prone to turn into 
clams. We wait for the coming of the Lord without pre- 
paring the way. We stand in line for the parade into 
heaven while some of our near neighbors are going to 
the devil. We are good, but good for nothing. 


Law ENFORCEMENT 


Jesus said, “I came not to send peace, but a sword.” 
The Christian who takes his calling seriously has his fight 
eut out for him, for he must fight sin on every hand. 
When Roosevelt died, all Tammany Hall paid him tribute; 
not because its devotees loved him, but because he was 
dead and could not spoil their graft any longer. A man 
like this is usually called unorthodox by the respectable 
grafters, who do not want their reputations soiled. A 
minister who fights for law enforcement is warned not to 
mix up with “the world.” We need more Christians who 
will spend half their time in the tunic of a nurse and half 
in the mail of a warrior. 

If any think those who enforce the laws have not the 
task of a crusader, let them look at this letter written by 
a Negro pastor in Texas to the Board of Home -Missions 
and Church Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church: 


CIVIC DUTIES | 79 


“DEAR SIRS: 

“We have a membership of more than five hundred who 
live in the Mexia oil field and own large tracts of land sur- 
rounded with oil wells, and the white people having promised 
to run us out and treat us like they did those Negroes in 
Tulsa, Oklahoma. We want to know, Can we get the church 
to handle our property for us? Can we grant the church 
the power of an attorney to act for us in time of such great 
danger. These are awful days for us poor, helpless Negroes 
in the South. The other day a member of my race was 
burned in Texas, about ten miles from me—burned by un- 
masked men, children, and women; and men jabbed sticks in 
his mouth, nose, and eyes. This act was done in the day; 
so if we are mobbed and run out, we want some one to see 
after our property. 

“Signed, REL NE IY 


We must not only walk in “the paths of righteousness” 
but search through the forests until we discover where 
these paths lie. Wayne B. Wheeler, of the Anti-Saloon 
League, tells us how we may aid the enforcement of the 
prohibition amendment. He says: 


“Help create public sentiment for law and order by talk- 
ing it. 

“Become acquainted with the officers of the law. 

“Give information to officers as to violations, local, State, 
_ federal. 

“Urge members of Congress, State Legislatures, and muni- 
cipal legislative bodies to prevent the weakening of the 
present laws and encourage strengthening these measures. 

“Give information to press about prohibition and its enforce- 
ment. 

“Answer articles from wets. 

“Urge pastors to help by speaking for law enforcement. 

“Keep on friendly terms with officers as far as possible. 

“Hncourage discussion of the issue of law enforcement in 
young people’s societies, schools, etc. Protest in a dignified 
manner to a judge or other officer who gives ridiculously low 
fines or fails in doing his duty and makes law enforcement a 
farce. 

“Persons willing to serve as deputy sheriffs or constables are 
urged to do so. 

“Speak your convictions courageously, but never in anger, 
for law and order whenever law enforcement is condemned 
in your presence.” 


Those of us who are talking about the barbarism of the 
Turk should remember that the lynchings in the United 


80 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


States reached a total of 3,422 between the years of 1889 
and 1921. Of these, 720 were white. The annual number 
decreased 54 per cent from 1889 to 1908, but the decrease 
since then has been only 7 per cent. The only States with 
clear records are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, 
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Utah, and the District 
of Columbia. Principal R. R. Moton, of Tuskegee Insti- 
tute, sends out the annual record of lynchings. In one 
year there were 72 instances in which officers of the 
law prevented lynchings; 64 of these were in Southern 
States. In 1921 there were 63 persons lynched, of whom 
62 were in the South; 59 were Negroes, and 4 were whites. 
Among the cases of lynching there were 19 instances in 
which prisoners were taken from jail and 16 others in 
which they were taken from officers of the law before 
reaching the jail. 

Imagine yourself, if you can, in the place of a county 
sheriff who refuses to deliver a man from jail to a mob to 
be lynched and then finds himself defeated at the next 
election. 

“For they who, by whatever name, 
Have dared to challenge wrong, 
Who stoop to lift the burdened up 
And help the weak be strong,— 
These blaze again the shining paths 

The lords of life have trod; 
And where their valiant footsteps go, 
There go the ways of God.” 


REFORMS 
An Oklahoma town council met one night to vote on 


buying the equipment for an electric-lighting plant. The — 


hall was crowded with taxpayers. One member of the 
council, who had refused a bribe from the salesman, 


: 
) 


opposed the offer. Every other councilman spoke in favor — 


of it and seemed personally much disappointed when the 
sale was not made, for evidently each had been offered 
the same rake-off. There are usually some in every such 
group who indignantly spurn a bribe and so save the day. 


: 


An increasing number of men in public office place public | 


trust above personal gain. Many church members now- 
adays are replacing philanthropy with civic service. In- 


CIVIC DUTIES | 81 


stead of giving poor people old clothes they are giving 
them a living wage. Instead of sending a missionary barrel 
they are paying their benevolences in full. Instead of 
supplying a tenant with baking powder and sour milk and 
other petty gifts they are helping him get enough money 
to buy a home of his own through the Federal Farm Loan 
Association. 

The most encouraging sign of the church’s present-day 
crusade against sin is the way we are making character 
building tax-supported. We are using part of our taxes for 
community playgrounds. We are building community 
social halls instead of jails. We are getting our boys and 
girls into daily vacation church schools instead of into 
juvenile courts. Our school boards are substituting medi- 
cal examination in the schools for neighborhood epidemics, 
The farmers are testing their cows to help keep babies well. 
The church, in addition to nursing and healing the sick, is 
agitating for a community nurse, an efficient health board, 
good schools, and a healthy recreational program. Not 
only through the appeal for pity but through efficient civic 
officials can permanent reforms come. 

Poverty is curable. County agents, agricultural col- 
leges, and cooperative producing and marketing associa- 
tions help do away with poverty. Sickness is preventable. 
County nurses, home-demonstration agents, county health 
officers, and sanitary inspectors protect health. Sin is 
curable. Proper recreation, regulated amusement places, 
schools with industrial education, churches with com- 
munity halls, church schools with organized activities, are 
all character-forming institutions. In this way we “fight 
the good fight with all our might.” In the crusade 
against sin let us sing, 


“Lead on, O King Eternal! 
The day of march has come,” 


and then follow him. 


PRACTICING RELIGION IN CrIvic ACTIVITIES 


Everywhere we are finding an increasing number of 
Christian laymen who are meeting squarely their civic 
responsibilities. Look at the record of this New York 


82 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


State farmer: Director, Wyoming County Agricultural 
Society; president, New York State Farm Bureau Federa- 
tion for five years; trustee, Syracuse University; president, 
Wyoming County Farm Bureau; master, Wyoming County 
Grange; chaplain, New York State Grange; master, New 
York State Grange; vice-president, American Farm Bureau 
Federation; vice-president, Gainesville National Bank; 
president, Board of Education, Castile High School; dele- 
gate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church; president, New York State Sunday School Asso- 
ciation; and member of the federal food administration. 
In the same year he was voted upon for Master of the 
State Grange, there was a bitter school fight on in his 
State. A bill had been proposed in the Legislature to im- 
prove the rural schools. It was a very unpopular bill 
with the grangers, because they feared it would raise 
school taxes and also bring about consolidation of small 
district schools. Notwithstanding the unpopularity of the 
bill this man championed it throughout the State because 
he believed it was for the best interests of the rural boys 
and girls. When told that he would be defeated for the 
highest honor in the State that the grange could give him 
if he supported this bill he replied, “‘I would rather stand 
for a principle I believe to be right than to be elected Mas- 
ter of the State Grange.” 

Recently, while the cotton market in the South was 
suffering a bad collapse, more than eight thousand Texas 
farmers faithfully stuck to their pool contracts at great 
personal loss, because principle meant more to them than 
money. Likewise, many a dairy farmer in New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, and New York stayed in the Dairymen’s 
League at a personal loss because of the principles involved. 
Putting principle above price and civic good above per- 
sonal gain is one of the everyday uses for a virile 
Christianity. 

In a small, sleepy village in New York State the only 
public institution was the one-teacher school, and the only 
public building was the old stone schoolhouse, built more 
than a hundred years ago. ‘There was no church, no 
grange, no lodge, no community pride, no recent public 
improvement. ‘Two young women became responsible for 


CIVIC DUTIES | 83 


a Sunday school in the old schoolhouse. Another woman 
promoted the building of a community hall. Because of 
these activities there came once more into this neighbor- 
hood idealism and civic responsibility. 

No one knows when his opportunity will come to give 
his testimony in the cause of civic righteousness. A 
teacher of a men’s Bible class on Long Island was elected 
to the State senate. The dry forces of the State looked 
to him to vote for law enforcement instead of, in this case, 
standing with his party. 

In a pioneer Oklahoma community a small group of 
early settlers were trying to get a church started. There 
came to one of these meetings two young men who endeay- 
ored to “start some excitement” by “breaking up the meet- 
ing.” I was always proud of my father that night, because 
_ he dared go down to the constable and swear out a war- 
rant for the arrest of the two offenders. This, however, was 
the same type of spirit he showed when he took the initia- 
tive in starting that little Methodist church. Civic right- 
eousness is the work-day clothes of Sunday religion. 

Churches everywhere are giving to the community in 
country and in city, State and nation, an increasing num- 
ber of men and women who look upon their civic respon- 
sibility as the week-day expression of their Sunday 
profession. 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 


1. Can you give any explanation for the teacher of the 
men’s Bible class who voted against law enforcement in 
order to keep with his party? 

2. Discuss the man who agrees with a prohibition ser- 
mon on Sunday morning and who agrees with the first 
man Monday morning who finds fault with the Volstead 
Act. 

3. Which one of our recent presidents has gone down in 
history as a champion of civic righteousness ? 

4, What does an incident like the Tulsa race riot indi- 
cate relative to the sense of civic responsibility the citizens 
of that place had at that time? 

5. A minister resigned from his church, because the 
Ladies’ Aid Society held a bazaar in the basement of his 


84 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


church building. Across the street from this same min- 
ister was a gambling hole he had left unmolested all the 
year. What type of religion did he have? Compare him 
with Amos or Micah. 

6. A church in a small village took a definite stand 
against lawbreaking. The local paper came out with a 
long editorial advising the church to “stick to religion” 
and “stay out of politics.” What should the church do 
next? 


CHAPTER IX 
OUR TOWN 


JESUS was born in a Judean village, lived in a small 
town in Galilee, and during all his life loved village people. 
Even when he went up to the city to the feasts he sought 
those closer friendships found most easily in a little village 
like Bethany. 

He knew well the needs of these scattered villages. 
Matthew says, ““He was moved with compassion for them.” 

In our country there are twelve thousand of these scat- 
tered villages, and twelve million people enjoy the close 
ties of friendship and the petty happenings that such vil- 
lages furnish. These twelve million Americans know their 
neighbors better than anyone else does. ‘They are con- 
scious, too, of the hospitality, the kindliness, and the genu- 
ineness, as well as the limitations, of village life. 


SCRIPTURE LESSON 
Matt. 9. 35-38. 

35 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teach- 
ing in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the 
kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner 
of sickness. 386 But when he saw the multitudes, he was 
moved with compassion for them, because they were dis- 
tressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd. 37 
Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is 
plenteous, but the laborers are few. 38 Pray ye therefore 
He Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his 

arvest. 


Luke 8. 1-3. 


1 And it came to pass soon afterwards, that he went about 
through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good 
tidings of the kingdom of God, and with him the twelve, 2 and 
certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and 
infirmities: Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom 
seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna the wife of Chuzas 
Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who min- 
istered unto them of their substance. 


85 


86 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


We are apt to condemn the small village, tell of its 
faults, make fun of it. Jesus went about among the 
villages of Galilee “bringing good tidings.” 

What if the “kingdom of God” should come to our vil- 
lages? What differences would it make? Should we still 
have loafers around the stores? Would the neighbors 
gossip as much? Would the alleys be any cleaner? Would 
the weeds still grow along the sidewalks? Would the 
clerks still need to work their fifteen hours a day? Would 
law-breakers still hide in the back streets and alleys? How 
would it affect our town if the kingdom of God came to it? 


STREETS AND SIDEWALKS 


A village, like a person, can have pride, ambition, and a 
conscience. Likewise, it can be conservative, discouraged, 
careless of appearances, and heedless of improvements. 

“How far is it to Oakland?” a stranger asked. 

“Two miles,” came the reply. “You’ll know when you 
get there by the bad roads.” 

Not a very good advertisement for a town! One block 
of bad streets hurts a town’s reputation more than any 
commercial club can help it. 

A Catholic priest was sent to a small Wisconsin village 
where no improvements had been made in more than a 
score of years. He built a sidewalk in front of the church 
yard and on toward the center of town. This appealed to 
the pride of his neighbors. One by one they followed his 
example and built sidewalks too. This may seem like a 
small improvement but it was enough to awaken village 
pride, and other good things followed. Whatever priest 
or layman, agent or institution can awaken the pride of 
a small village and make it want to improve itself, helps 
the coming of the kingdom of God in that place. Improve- 
ment is contagious. A new cement sidewalk in a discour- 
aged village paves the way for other improvements. 


An Open Town 


When the town officials allow people to do just as 
they please, we say “the town is wide open.” Bootlegging 
and moonshining flourished in a certain Oklahoma town. 


OUR TOWN | 87 


Some of the citizens complained to the town officials. But 
nothing was done about it. Automobiles were seen travel- 
ing forty miles an hour through the streets. Again the 
officials received complaints from the citizens but did 
nothing. Sunday closing laws were not enforced. The 
place soon became known as “an open town.” Finally 
its lawlessness culminated in a big race riot in which thirty 
blocks of homes were burned and many lives were lost. 
Two million dollars’ worth of property was destroyed. 
Not only was there a loss of property, but the town suffered 
a seared conscience and a blighted soul. 

It will take the kingdom of God a long time to come to 
a town whose officials do not enforce the law. In fact, the 
law is simply the best judgment of the people, written down 
on statute books. It is what the best people want. It is 
the measure of improvement which the town has made. 

Good Christians will support officials who enforce the 
law. In fact, the best Christians will run for office and 
take a more active part in law enforcement. A man is a 
poor excuse for a Christian who will not vote on election 
day but will complain about “the politicians” the rest of 
the year. The kingdom of God does not come to a town 
out of the clouds, but, rather, out of the thoughtful self- 
denial and the earnest effort which we as Christians prac- 
tice each day. 


CoopERATION AMoNG MERCHANTS 


When the “good tidings of the kingdom of God” 
really reach our town the merchants will be getting along 
well with each other. They will keep their word. When 
they agree on certain closing hours, no one will need to 
doubt them. Like good neighbors, they will accommodate 
each other. They will not be like that furniture dealer in 
a small town who paid regular visits to his competitor and 
while pretending to be making a friendly call would find 
out the prices on his neighbor’s goods so that he could go 
back and mark his goods a trifle lower. This man was a 
“professing” Christian but not good at “practicing.” 

Merchants, like others, must make a fair profit. “Fair- 
price fixing” among merchants is a sign of friendly coop- 
eration. Of course, it must be fair to the buyer, too. 


88 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


HouipAys FoR CLERKS 


The Christmas spirit has been responsible for the “Shop 
early” slogan. The “good tidings of great joy which shall 
be to all people” which the angels announced, fills our 
hearts around Christmas time, so that we at least make 
resolutions to shop early and lighten the burden of the 
clerks. As the spirit of good will fills our hearts more and 
more we will think about these same clerks after Christmas 
is over. We will not require them to work seven days a 
week. We will arrange our business so that they can have 
a half holiday each week. We will allow them early closing 
hours. We will be considerate of others. 


Town AND CountTRY COOPERATION 


When the kingdom of God comes to our town the 
farmers near town will know it. The suspicion that so 
often arises between the town and the country will be 
broken down. The families of farmers and merchants will _ 
visit back and forth. They will realize that their pros- 
perity depends on each other. They will also unite in com- 
munity developments, Chautauquas, agricultural fairs, 
better schools, and churches. 

The attitude among the church people in some villages 
has been to pray for the farmers on Sunday because they 
don’t come to church and to prey on them the remainder 
of the week. But many villages are changing their idea 
of exploiting the open country to one of friendly coopera- 
tion. A small New York village recently had a banquet 
and program which was given jointly by the farmers and 
merchants. Over six hundred farmers attended this meet- 
ing. It was an encouraging evidence of friendly coop- 
eration and good will. A large town church uses its 
assistant pastor to do extension work among country 
churches. He has resuscitated two abandoned churches 
and is bringing the gospel to five needy communities. His 
work is an excellent example of unselfish service on the 
part of the town church which supports him. 


Our STORES 
The farmer too will do his part toward a greater coopera- 


OUR TOWN : 89 


tive spirit. Some farmers wear out ten mail-order catalogs 
to one Bible. They are afraid their local merchant is 
beating them, so they spend their leisure time looking over 
catalogs of mail-order houses. Cooperation, instead of 
suspicion, between farmers and merchants will come with 
the coming of the kingdom of good will. We honor God 
by the way we do our daily work. After Jesus said, “I 
must be about my Father’s business,” he worked eighteen 
years at the carpenter’s trade. He was doing God’s will 
when he was making plow beams, as he was when he was 
dying on the cross. A merchant honors God by the way 
he does his daily work, treats his customers, manages his 
store. Is his store neat and clean? Does he take pride in 
keeping his wares up-to-date? Are the biggest potatoes 
to be found through the basket as well as on the top? 
Are his goods as represented ? 

The devil’s best advertising station is a small store in a 
small town with a group of small men sitting around the 
store telling questionable stories. Women sometimes com- 
plain that they are embarrassed trading at such stores. 

If there are more tobacco advertisements on the outside 
of a store than all other signs, that merchant is doing a 
poor job of honoring God in his daily life. 


GREAT PEOPLE IN SMALL VILLAGES 


If there are five grain elevators in a town where there 
should be only three, or three churches in a town where 
there should be only two, or two banks in a town where 
there should be only one, there is usually a lot of argu- 
ment as to which is the greatest. Jesus defined greatness 
for us in no uncertain language. When his own disciples 
got into one of those petty arguments, Jesus said, “Whoso- 
ever would become great among you, shall be your min- 
ister.” The man who will be the greatest in the town, 
then, will be the one who best serves his fellow men. He 
will try to get an electric lighting plant and a water 
system installed. He will not only vote in favor of bonds 
for new streets and sidewalks but will keep his own streets 
and sidewalks in repair. He will not hinder the telephone 
service by monopolizing a party line or “listening in” 


, 


90 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


when others are talking. He will find ways to serve his 
farm customers during the busy season by sending goods 
out by mail. He will accept his share of town offices. He 
will help get good clean votes out to the polls on election 
day. No children will be deprived of health or education 
while working in his factory or store. He may be able to 
say as Jesus said, “I am in the midst of you as he that 
serveth.” 

We often hear of doctors who go away to the city and 
achieve greatness. “They are known all over such and 
such a city” we hear. In Minnesota are two brothers who 
have tried to do their best even though they have lived in 
a small town, and their reputation reaches not only across 
one city but is nation-wide. The sick of a continent have 
made a pathway to their door. 

At a gathering of ministers at the University of Wis- 
consin one man was present from a small village church 
who gave the impression of being the least among that 
gathering. But it was later learned that fifty-seven other 
clergymen had entered the ministry from the small village 
churches which he had faithfully served. 

A banker in a small village was offered a place in a large 
bank of a large city, but he preferred living among neigh- 
bors and friends. People all over the county call him by 
his first name. They come to him not only when they have 
business to transact but also when they are in trouble. It 
has been said of him that no funeral procession has ever 
gone out of the small town where he lives but that his car 
has carried either the mourners or the pall bearers. One 
of the questions he often hears is, “Well, Roy, how many 
widows have you by this time?” for it seems that he cares 
for the business of most of the widows in the county. 
He is always on hand in case of sickness, and, when a home 
burns or any misfortune befalls a neighbor, he seems to 
be the first one to reach the house. No one remembers a 
Chautauqua or fair that he did not serve on the committee. 
And although he may not have as many customers as if 
he had gone to the city bank, he has many more friends, 
real and genuine friends, who look to him in gratitude and 
love. 

Four women in a small quarrelsome village started in 


OUR TOWN 91 


to change village jealousies into community pride. In 
their little hamlet small things appeared large because 
there was nothing big to be seen or heard. So they planned 
a big community program. First they organized all the 
women they could get to join them into a Home Bureau. 
Next they arranged for the use of an abandoned store 
building for a community hall. A new play ground with 
play equipment at the school was next. Then a demon- 
stration in beautification was planned. Gradually in their 
village, as a result of these community efforts, hatreds 
changed to faith, discouragement to hope, selfishness to 
service, and petty gossip to general good will. 

A resident describing a certain village said, “Everybody 
and everything is here pulling against everyone else.” One 
man remarked, “This place reminds me of a cross-cut saw, 
because people are always pulling in opposite directions.” 
The Masons and Odd Fellows were competitors. The Ku 
Klux Klan was stirring up religious prejudice and calling 
it one hundred per cent Americanism. The “poolers” and 
“non-poolers” were much in evidence, and so the lines of 
division continued, the “wets” and the “drys,” the Demo- 
crats and Republicans, the Protestants and Catholics, the 
liberals and the fundamentalists. Finally, the new Meth- 
odist pastor organized a big unified school of week-day reli- 
gious instruction, into which came the children from all 
types of homes. Through serving their boys and girls, the 
parents were quickly moved to forget their factions and 
unite in a village-wide social program under the direction 
of a “community council” in which each organization had 
representation. 

Two families in another community caught the vision of 
improving their village. They talked improvements them- 
selves and brought in “outside speakers.” The spirit 
finally became contagious, until now they have: (1) a new 
school building, (2) a well-equipped school play ground, 
(3) an up-to-date library, (4) two modern churches with 
separate rooms for all the departments in the Sunday 
school, (5) a parish house used for all types of community 
meetings, (6) an auditorium for lectures and concerts, 
(7) a visiting nurse and health clinics, (8) committees 
on agricultural and home improvement. 


92 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


Work TuHat Counts 


Jesus once said, “My Father worketh even until now 
and I work.” And as he went about his work among the 
villages of Palestine—teaching, healing, preaching—he was 
impressed with the need of more workers. “The harvest 
truly is plenteous,” he said, “but the laborers are few.” 

Carrying on his work among the twelve thousand vil- 
lages in our own land is a task which our Lord offers to us. 


Oh, Master, let me walk with thee, 
In lowly paths of service free. 


We can be “laborers in his vineyard” in this our own 
village. First, let us see its possibilities. We must believe 
in our town before we can do much for it. Who would 
have thought the little town of Concord, Massachusetts, 
would produce more writers of national fame than New 
York or Chicago or San Francisco? ‘Then we can serve 
our Lord in our daily business relationships. We can be 
honest and straightforward with our neighbors. Honesty 
is soon discovered and valued in a small town. The way 
we operate our stores is known to all. Our religion is 
tested when the clothesline breaks or the neighbor’s 
chickens get into our garden. Living in a small town calls 
for that compassionate spirit of our Lord, that “chemistry 
of the soul” which Jesus had, which sees in all about us a 
chance to love and serve our fellow men. 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 


1. Does our town have adequate fire protection? An 
efficient lighting plant? A good water system? 

2. Have there been any traffic accidents on our streets? 

3. Are we proud of our sidewalks? 

4. Is there a friendly feeling between our farmers and 
merchants ? . 

5. Are we considerate of the business interests of others 
by allowing early closing hours for clerks? 

6. Does Christianity affect our daily business in such 
a way that our competitors will trust us? 

?. Are our stores free from loafers? Do we advertise 
for the devil by the crowd that hangs.around our stores? 


OUR TOWN 7 93 


8. Are we honoring God by seeing that the law is 
enforced in our town? Is it free from bootleggers? 

9. Are people kind and neighborly with one another or 
is there considerable gossip? 

10. Do neighbors show the Christian spirit by helping 
each other in times of sickness or need? 

11. Is our town getting better? Is the kingdom of God 
coming any nearer to our village? 


CHAPTER X 
OUR SCHOOLS 


THE CHuRCH’s INTEREST IN SCHOOLS 


WITHIN twenty years after the Pilgrims landed in 
America, a law was enacted making it the duty of the 
State to see that every child received an education. As far 
back as 1642 a parent could be fined who neglected the 
education of his children. The church early realized that 
ignorance and sin went hand in hand. From the very 
beginning schools were established and supported as a reli- 
gious duty. The church early helped in the building of 
colleges in order to train Christian leaders. In most 
pioneer communities the same building was used for school 
and church. 

Has this early interest of the church in our schools 
lessened? ‘To-day we find many active church members 
who have never attended a school meeting in their lives. 
Occasionally we find ministers who do not visit the schools 
at all. At some annual school elections in the country less 
than half a dozen votes are cast. 

In a certain village where sixteen thousand dollars was 
spent annually on the schools only twenty-one people 
attended the annual school meeting one year. Only one 
parent out of fifty came to the meeting. In some com- 
munities with a hundred church members it is hard to get 
three men who are willing to serve as school officials. We 
are increasing our taxes to care for criminals faster than 
for schoolchildren. We complain about the expense of our 
schools. One retired farmer, when asked about the im- 
provement of the schools, replied, “I’m in favor of any 
kind of school improvement—if it does not cost anything.” 
Sometimes we have been guilty of voting for school trustees 
because they have promised to keep school taxes down. In 
our rural schools we spend twenty-four dollars a year on 
the education of a boy or girl; to care for a criminal for 
trial and detention in prison we spend thirteen hundred 

94 ; 


OUR SCHOOLS 95 


dollars a year. Ignorance and sin are much more expen- 
sive than education and righteousness. 

“What would Jesus have us do about this?” we ask. 
We know, of course, his attitude toward children; for when 
he saw the disciples rebuking the mothers for bothering 
him with their children, “he was moved with indignation, 
and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto 
me; forbid them not: for to such belongeth the kingdom 
of God.” We also know that “Teacher” was the most 
common title given to our Lord. He was interested in 
children and before all else he was a Teacher. 

We may well ask if we have been neglecting our schools 
when in a progressive State like New York many school- 
houses are now being used which are more than a hundred 
years old. A recent survey of the schools of the State 
shows that more than half the buildings are over fifty 
years of age. Is it not time for a change? Warren H. 
Wilson says, “Nothing short of religious devotion will 
organize an adequate educational system for the whole 
people.” 

SCRIPTURE LESSON 
Hos. 4. 6. 


My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou 
hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou 
shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law 
of thy God, I also will forget thy children. 


John 5. 2-9. 

2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which 
is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In 
these lay a multitude of them that were sick, blind, halt, 
withered. 5 And a certain man was there, who had been 
thirty and eight years in his infirmity. 6 When Jesus saw 
him lying, and knew that he had been now a long time in 
that case, he saith unto him, Wouldest thou be made whole? 
7 The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when 
the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I 
am coming, another steppeth down before me. 8 Jesus saith 
unto him, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. 9 And straight- 
way the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked. 


JESUS’ METHOD OF IMPROVEMENT 


The infirm man began to excuse himself and to put the 
blame on someone else. Nobody helped him, he claimed. 


96 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


If anyone did offer to help, either he wasn’t ready, or the 
pool wasn’t. Thirty-eight years is a long time to wait on 
someone else. Jesus told him to get up, to stand on his 
own feet. Whatever else Jesus may have done for him, 
he got him to help himself. 

We hear people say nowadays: “I never had a chance 
to go to school when I was young.” “My mother was 
sick, and I wasn’t able to finish.” ‘The schools here were 
so poor our children didn’t do well.” “We only had six 
months of school, and it was the teacher’s first term.” 
“Poor fellow—he was not so bad; just ignorant.” But 
who is responsible for these things? 


Hanpicaps oF Rurat Boys AND GIRLS 


Miss Mabel Carney, head of the Department of Rural 
Education of Columbia University, says that our eleven 
million rural children “are lamentably handicapped and 
neglected”; that “illiteracy is twice as bad in rural areas 
as in urban districts.” She says further that country chil- 
dren have only seven months of school a year, on an aver- 
age, to nine months for city children and are kept at home 
to work or are absent for other reasons more than one 
fourth of the school term. Farmers spend twenty-four dol- 
lars per capita each year on the education of their boys or 
girls, while the cities spend forty dollars per capita. One 
half the teachers in country schools have never completed 
a four-year high-school course. Only one teacher out of 
fifty in country schools is a normal-school graduate. We 
would hardly let a doctor without a medical education care 
for our children when sick: why should we let untrained 
people care for our children’s minds? Isn’t it about time 
we were improving our own schools ourselves? 


ScHooLt IMPROVEMENTS 


As a rule a community is more interested in its chil- 
dren than in anything else. Most taxpayers want to 
improve the schools. One unmarried woman worked 
against school improvement because, as she said, “I have ~ 
two farms and no children.” She was thinking more about — 
her taxes than about other people’s. children. As a rule, © 





OUR SCHOOLS | 97 


though, people will help improve the schools if they know 
how to do it. 

In one community a mass meeting was being held to 
discuss the equipping of a playground on the school yard. 
One woman objected thus: “I’m afraid the big boys will 
push the little ones out of the swings and break their arms.” 
When it was explained to her that the play apparatus for 
small children would be separated from the rest, she was 
enthusiastic in favor of the plan. 

Much of the opposition to the consolidation of SHaudien 
trict schools is due to the fear of losing from the com- 
munity one of the best-loved institutions. As one parent 
said: “Our school is the only thing we have left. They 
have taken everything else away from us. They took our 
post office when the rural delivery came. With it the store 
left. The blacksmith shop closed up when the automobiles 
came. The State has taken everything but our school, and 
we want to keep it.” But this is an unreasonable attitude 
if through consolidation children can be provided with 
better schools. 


PARENT-TEACHER ASSOCIATIONS 


New interest is being created in schools by parent-teacher 
associations, sometimes called home-and-school leagues. 
They are bringing the parents and the teachers closer 


‘together. Home work and home projects are more success- 


ful. The parents can talk to the pupils about school life 
more intelligently and sympathetically. Some associations 
provide playground equipment for the schools, hot lunches, 
lectures, or motion-picture programs. One valuable effect 
of the work of some of these associations has been to get 
at least one mother elected on the school board. She is 
put into office to improve the schools, to save the child 
rather than to save taxes. 


Tuer ScHoot-Tax Levy 


Everyone says taxes are getting too high, and no one dis- 
putes it; but before we say that again let us discriminate 
between school taxes and others. We spend as much on 
crime in the United States as we do on our public schools 
below high school. Let just one boy grow up in ignorance 


98 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


and become a lawbreaker, and he will cost the community 
as much in taxes each year as we spend on a school for 
fifty pupils—thirteen hundred dollars a year for a criminal 
and twenty-four dollars a year for a schoolboy. It would 
be money well spent to keep him from becoming a criminal. 
We should save taxes by spending more on the schools. 

Elmira, New York, employs teachers of play and games 
for the schools. These “play teachers” supervise games, 
train a brass band of seventy-five pieces, and put on con- 
certs and dramatic events. They have built a playground 
out of a rubbish dump in the city and fitted up a camping 
ground on an island in the river near by. All this costs the 
city in taxes nine cents for each boy or girl. If a boy or 
girl who has been neglected gets into trouble and is sent 
to a correctional institution, the cost to the city for this 
one juvenile delinquent is four hundred and thirty-nine 
dollars. Nine cents per pupil for a teacher of play and 
more than four hundred dollars for a boy who has been 
neglected! Play is cheaper than neglect; education costs 
less than ignorance; right living is inexpensive compared 
with crime, vice, and sin. 

Before we vote against an increased school tax again let 
us cut down our expenditures on luxuries. According 
to government statistics in 1920 the women in this country 
spent enough money on toilet preparations, cosmetics, and 
lipsticks to pay the whole cost of the public schools of the 
nation. And the men need not feel so self-sacrificing, for 
they spent twice as much on tobacco as our schools cost. 

A rural community in a Northwestern State decided it 
wanted a better grade of horses. The farmers sent a man 
to Chicago to buy a pure-bred colt, paying four thousand 
dollars for him. The barn they built for him cost more 
than their schoolhouse, and they paid the man who cared 
for their horse twice as much salary as they paid their 
school-teacher. They have some fine colts in the com- 
munity now; unfortunately two of their young men are in 
State penitentiaries. Neglected schools mean crowded 
penitentiaries. 

In a Wisconsin institution for juvenile delinquents it 
was found that out of 252 of these young criminals only 
seven had ever read a good book. The church has the job 


OUR SCHOOLS 99 


of fighting sin. Doesn’t this Wisconsin institution show 
that the church as a whole and every Christian as an indi- 
vidual should be more interested in good schools? 

One of the best expenditures of our benevolent boards is 
for mission schools. We find that backward communities 
and handicapped peoples receive their most permanent 
help through these institutions, We give the Lord’s money 
for their support. We also give a part of our tithes to the 
support of church colleges. Then why should Christian 
men and women not be interested in the schools for our own 
boys and girls in our home communities? School taxes 
should be increased through the influence of church folk 
in the same spirit in which we support mission schools. 


REAL PATRIOTISM 


A certain school board insists that the United States flag 
be displayed on each school day and then hires the cheapest 
teacher available. This raises the question as to what 
real patriotism is. Is it talking about our glorious past 
or is it making our country better for the future? We all 
recall the many drives we helped make for our home neigh- 
borhoods during the World War. Our patriotism was 
such that we always subscribed more than our quota. But 
a country schoolhouse costs less than a cannon, a college 
less than a battleship. Let’s “go over the top” in school 
taxes. We read each day how “wealthy America should 
help the war-stricken world”; yet seven other countries 
have a higher percentage of literacy than the United 
States. Let us levy sufficient school taxes to provide 
efficient teachers, buildings, and equipment for our own 
boys and girls. 


ScHOooL PRIDE 


Blackwell, Oklahoma, is one of the many towns whose 
every citizen is proud of its schools. The old resident and 
the newcomer, the banker and the bricklayer, are all ready 
to tell you how much they think of their public schools. 
Each summer before high school begins, the men of the 
town go out into the surrounding country searching for 
students. They arrange a banquet every year for all of the 

boys who have just completed the neighboring rural 


100 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


schools. These men go out in their cars and bring the 
boys in to this banquet. Here they are encouraged to 
enroll in the high school. They are told of its vocational 
work and its athletics and are shown its spirit. Successful 
farmers and others emphasize the value to those students 
of completing a high-school course. Employment to help 
pay their expenses is found for them if necessary. This 
school is known throughout the State for its athletic accom- 
plishments. Its principal is called to the colleges and uni- 
versities in the State to referee games. Riding across the 
country, a stranger can locate the rural schools where the 
graduates of this high school are teaching. The buildings 
are painted and in good repair. They have equipment for 
instruction in cooking, sewing, manual training, or agri- 
culture, and they usually have ample outdoor play equip- 
ment—swings, seesaws, sand boxes, volleyball and tennis 
courts, and baseball diamonds. 

In contrast with this school a township in West Vir- 
ginia comes to mind. The president of the school board, 
a local physician, is giving of his time unstintedly to the 
improvement of the schools; but no one seems to be help- 
ing him. He said, “I have been in a good many difficult 
situations and have tackled a good many hard jobs in my 
life, but this school job is the most difficult one.” Out of 
a possible one hundred points the twenty schools in this 
township scored only fifty-six. Buildings were out of 
date. Light came in from both sides instead of just from 
the left or from the left and rear. The stoves were not 
jacketed. Floors were not oiled. There were no libraries 
in the schools. Only a few had a piano or organ or vic- 
trola. The toilets were unsanitary. The blackboards were 
antiquated. ‘The only interest the church people seemed to 
take in the schools was to get the free use of the building 
for revival meetings. The county superintendent of 
schools was defeated in the last election because he advo- 
cated an increased school tax. The president of the school 
board was doing his best to improve the schools, but the 
people were not helping him. They lacked a Christian 
attitude toward their schools. The adult class in the Sun- 
day school could have created an entirely different attitude 
toward education. As the situation’is now, the boys are 


OUR SCHOOLS 101 


leaving school and becoming village loafers. The poor 
schools in this West Virginia township are the natural 
result of a lack of interest among the citizens in its school. 
The Oklahoma school owes its success to the pride the 
parents take in it. 


WEEK-Day ReEtigrous EDUCATION 


The Interchurch Survey showed us that 69.3 per cent 
of all our boys and girls and young people under twenty- 
five years of age are not in any Sunday school. We have 
compulsory attendance at the public school, but two out 
of three of our children are not having the all-around 
development which Jesus had in his Nazareth community. 
When he went back to his home in Nazareth we read that 
he “advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with 
God and man.” 

The churches and schools cooperatively are trying to 
supply this needed religious instruction. Some of these 
week-day schools of religious education have been con- 
ducted by individual churches, though usually, in villages, 
two or more churches unite in this project. The public 
schools may close say at two-thirty Wednesday, and the 
pupils go to their respective churches or to one neighbor- 
ing church for regular religious instruction. Sometimes 
the public-school teachers are employed by the churches 
to have charge of the religious education. Sometimes 
arrangements are made for the classes to be held in the 
schoolhouse. More than five thousand such schools have 
already been arranged by the church and school authorities 
cooperatively, and the movement is growing. 

We pray daily: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven.” As we get up from our knees 
and start out to help bring in this kingdom for which we 
pray, as a part of the improvement of our church we must 
devote ourselves also to the improvement of our schools. 


QUESTIONS FoR DiscussION 


1. Is our home school getting better or worse? 

2. If you visited a community and found the people 
using automobiles of a 1900 model, the women wearing 
dresses that were in style in 1850, and the children going 


102 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


to a school built in 1860, according to the best knowledge 
of that day, what conclusions would you come to about 
the place? In the older settled States more than half the 
schoolhouses now in use were built before 1875. 

3. In a certain rural community in Idaho the teacher 
had great difficulty in finding a family with whom she 
could board. Does this indicate anything regarding the 
people’s interest in their schools? 

4, At a school election in a rural community in New 
York, as no one present would accept the office of school 
trustee, the voters elected a man who was not present. To 
get even with them he spent all the money available on 
school improvements. Would you have voted for his 
reelection ? 

5. Our best school authorities claim that our small dis- 
trict schools should be consolidated. How can this be 
accomplished in this community? 

6. If you had been the man at the Bethesda pool, what 
would you have done? If you found your community had 
an impotent church or school, what would you suggest be 
done about it? 

?. Which renders the greater service to his country— 
a soldier or a schoolteacher? Why? 


CHAPTER XI 
CHURCHES WORKING TOGETHER 


Most of our American colonies were settled by people 
who came here because of religious persecution in Europe. 
The Puritans settled Massachusetts. The Dutch Reformed 
founded New York and a part of New Jersey. The Roman 
Catholics started Maryland, naming the State after the 
French Catholic princess Maria. Scotch-Irish Presby- 
terians and Quakers settled North Carolina, and Baptists 
Rhode Island. Swedish Lutherans built up Delaware, and 
all know that the Quakers founded Pennsylvania. These 
Friends were very liberal, however, and soon German 
Lutherans and German Reformed colonists settled in parts 
of Pennsylvania. The Church of England controlled Vir- 
ginia and was found in other colonies as well. These 
early settlers were intensely loyal to their respective creeds, 
owing to the fact that most of them had been persecuted in 
Europe for believing as they did. 

As groups from these various colonies settled the Middle 
Western States, their different forms of worship were 
brought into closer contact and often into conflict. The 
Episcopalians, for example, at first had no denominational 
trouble in Virginia, for there were no other sects there. 
Only Episcopalians were allowed by law to teach or preach 
in the State. But where some of these families or their 
descendants in some Illinois town found themselves living 
alongside of Lutherans or “Come-Outers,” there was oppor- 
tunity for misunderstandings. For example, a group of 
Presbyterians from Pennsylvania would migrate to Ohio 
and build a Presbyterian church. As they sold their 
farms, the newcomers brought denominational problems. 
Mr. Methodist, who bought Mr. Presbyterian’s farm, 
instead of joining his church, thought loyalty to his denomi- 
nation required that he build a Methodist church there 
in the same community where there was a good church. 
Mrs. Baptist, who moved in across the road, could become 

103 


104 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


neither a Methodist nor a Presbyterian. Why? Simply 
because she was a Baptist. Soon her Baptist friends ral- 
lied around her, and a third church was built where one 
would have been sufficient; so to-day we have churches 
built sometimes only a mile apart or even across the road 
from one another. The average small villages of six or 
seven hundred people in the Middle West have three 
churches where one would be better. As one goes farther 
west, the condition is worse, partly because the population 
is more diverse, and partly because the Boards of Home 
Missions have rendered greater assistance in pbuilding 
‘new churches in the West. In a recent study of twenty- 
five counties made by Morse and Brunner they found that 
every fifth church in these counties receives home-mission 
aid, and that only thirty-four out of the 211 aided 
churches are entirely free from competition. Through no 
fault of the present membership many churches find 
themselves competing with another denomination, with 
the resulting unfriendly rivalry. 

John was on the isle of Patmos in the Spirit on the 
Lord’s day, looking for better things, when he wrote the 
following verses: 


SCRIPTURE LESSON 


Rev. 21. 1-5, 10, 18, 22-27. 

1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first 
heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is 
no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming 
down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned 
for her husband. 3 And I heard a great voice out of the throne 
saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he 
shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God 
himself shall be with them, and be their God: 4 and he shall 
wipe away every tear from, their eyes; and death shall be no 
more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, 
any more: the first things are passed away. 5 And he that 
sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And 
he saith, Write: for these words are faithful and true. 

10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain 
great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, com- 
ing down out of heaven from God. 

13 On the east were three gates; and on the north three 
gates; and on the south three gates; and on the west three 
gates. 

22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the 


CHURCHES WORKING TOGETHER 105 


Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof. 23 And the 
city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine 
upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp 
thereof is the Lamb. 24 And the nations shall walk amidst 
the light thereof: and the kings of the earth bring their glory 
into it. 25 And the gates thereof shall in no wise be shut 
by day (for there shall be no night there): 26 and they 
shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; 
27 and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or 
he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they 
that are written in the Lamb’s book of life. 


A New HEAvEN AND A New EartH 


In this new heaven and new earth all can enter except- 
ing those who “maketh an abomination and a lie.” Many 
of the unkind things we have said about the other denom- 
inations in our community have been untrue. All those 
whose names are “written in the Lamb’s book of life” can 
enter. Many gates open into this new heaven and new 
earth. The Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Reformed 
may perhaps enter through the three gates on the east. 
The three south gates may be used by the Methodists, 
Baptists, and Disciples. Perhaps the west gates may be 
for the United Brethren, Salvation Army, and Pentecostal 
Holiness, Lutherans, Quakers, and Catholics may be 
assigned to the three gates on the north side of the holy 
city. But, however they come, there will be no difficulties 
as to which church they shall attend; for in the new heaven 
and new earth John said, “I saw no temple therein; for 
the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple 
thereof.” And we who have spent so much of our time 
building denominational fences will be surprised to find 
that in the new heaven and the new earth “the gates thereof 
shall in no wise be shut.” 


DENOMINATIONAL J EALOUSIES 


Paul was taught to persecute the Christians. Luther, 
founder of Protestantism, wrote a book entitled That the 
Koran of Mohammed Is Brutish and Hoggish; another 
About the Coarse Ines in the Koran. One of Luther’s 
hymns begins: 

‘Lord, shield us with thy word and hope, 
And smite the Moslem and the Pope.” 


106 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


Many local churches have been born in our beloved rural 
America because of sectarian jealousy or denominational 
ride. 

The illustrations used here come from a first-hand study 
by the writer of 232 town and country churches in the 
Middle West. Forty-one different denominations are rep- 
resented in this group of 232 churches. Most of the mem- 
bers admitted they longed for “church unity,” but until 
they get it they are not showing, in at least half of the 
communities, a very neighborly spirit of cooperation. 

Here is a village of seven hundred people and three 
churches. The Methodists are accused of proselyting. The 
United Brethren are being censored for building a church 
in the village when another church is not needed. Both 
groups have some grievance against the Disciples. 

A representative of the Methodist Church, in telling of 
the success of his denomination, said, ““We have taken in 
one hundred and thirteen members in the three churches 
on our charge this year, and thirty-five of this number have 
come from other denominations.” There is not much 
Christian neighborliness in rejoicing over the fact of 
getting thirty-five persons to quit their church and join 
yours. ‘This representative concluded his statement with 
the proud assertion: “I tell you, my denomination is grow- 
ing in these parts!” Sometimes denominations can grow, 
and the kingdom of heaven suffer thereby. 

In discussing the unfriendly feeling toward the other 
churches a member of the Disciples Church made the 
remark: “If that Methodist church were on fire, and I 
should pass by, and a bucket of water were standing near, 
Vd kick it over and go on.” 

A representative of each of the three churches was asked 
the same question regarding the feeling between the three 
churches. Each blamed the bad feeling on the other 
church. 

“No, we are not very friendly,” said the Disciples’ rep- 
resentative. “You see, those United Brethren are to 
blame. They should never have built here.” 

The United Brethren pastor was asked, “How do the 
three churches get along?” “Not very well,” he replied ; “the 
Methodists held their revival longer than they agreed to.” 


CHURCHES WORKING TOGETHER 107 


The Methodists also admitted that things were going 
badly and said: “The Disciples are really the cause of the 
trouble. They seem to cause trouble in so many places.” 

The spirit in this village shows how important it is for 
denominations to make a greater effort to practice a neigh- 
borly spirit. Jesus prayed thus: “Neither for these only 
do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through 
their word; that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, 
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us; that 
the world may believe that thou didst send me.” 

A Baptist minister in one community preached to mem- 
bers of another denomination and then refused to take 
communion with them. One man does not take the Holy 
Communion with his wife, because she belongs to a 
different church. 

Debates and arguments between churches must be 
eliminated if we are to show the proper spirit of neigh- 
borliness. We must think better of our neighbors than 
we do of our denominational pride. Our neighbors’ needs 
are more important than our ancestors’ creeds. If we think 
more of service than of sects we will follow the Master’s 
example. Notice how the spirit of debate had permeated 
this church: The clerk was asked about the standing of a 
certain member. “Yes, he’s a good member,” was the 
reply; “he’s one of the best fighters we’ve got.” 

A million farmers in the United States move every 
year. They send their children to the new school, pay 
their taxes in the new community, but often refuse to join 
or even attend the new church. Statements are often 
heard like this: “No, sir, I am going to live and die just 
as 1am. I’m a Baptist and couldn’t be anything else.” 
“TY was born and raised a Methodist and I’m going to die 
one; so I want you to let me alone.” “My grandfather 
was an Episcopal clergyman; and although he’s dead now, 
I do not feel at home in other churches.” The trouble 
with these people is that they have plenty of loyalty, but 
it is for the wrong thing. To change this we must think 
of giving Christian service instead of keeping our organ- 
izations intact. There are one hundred and fifty-six sects 
in the United States, and they all need the leveling-down 
process of Christian neighborliness. 


108 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


Old church buildings often cause trouble even within 
the same denomination. With the automobile and im- 
proved roads neighborhoods are much larger than they 
were. This means that many churches should be united. 
When two Methodist congregations united in this way, 
three families refused to leave the old building. It was 
to them a local shrine regarded with a loyalty similar to 
that felt by the Canaanites for the “high places” which 
caused the prophets in the Old Testament so much trouble. 

A United Brethren congregation was divided because 
some of the members preferred the old log structure to the 
new building. They clung to their old building as the 
Samaritans clung to Mount Gerizim. 

Some people think of the church as they do a Pullman 
sleeping car, with its polite porter on hand to make up the 
beds and carry the baggage. No, a church isa battle front, 
facing sin, vice, selfishness, ignorance, and a lost world. 

In one United Brethren church the Sunday school dis- 
continued using union literature, adopting in its stead the 
regular United Brethren lessons. Most of the members of 
other denominations in this Sunday school withdrew. It 
is to be hoped that these “Pullman church members” will 
discover that the material in both lessons comes from the 
same Bible. 

In many small villages the churches feel they are doing 
well if they can leave each other alone; but when revival 
meetings are held, the competition for new converts and 
the jealousy over the success of another church start 
trouble. 

A young man was converted in one of the churches of 
his village and planned to join that church because, as he 
explained to his parents, “My crowd are all going to join 
that church.” His parents, who belonged to another 
church, said he must join their church if he joined any. 
Consequently, he joined none and is now spoken of as “the 
tough of the town.” This is the pathetic side of this 
unneighborly sectarianism. 

That young man who refused to join the Disciples 
Church of his parents is one of many being lost because of 
sectarianism. Out of ninety-one churches in one county 
twenty-five had no young men on their rolls under twenty- 


CHURCHES WORKING TOGETHER 109 


one years of age. In another county, with eighty-two 
churches, twenty-one had no young men among their mem- 
bership. Out of one hundred and seventy-three churches 
one out of every four lost their young men largely because 
of their petty sectarian program. 


A Way Our 


We should prefer to have someone tell us how to get well 
rather than recount our symptoms. ‘The pastor of the 
church, more than anyone else, will be able to change the 
attitude of envy and jealousy for the other church in the 
community to neighborliness and cooperation. 

The church members can help by making financial 
arrangements for their pastor to attend all kinds of inter- 
denominational conferences, such as county and State Sun- 
day-school conventions, meetings of the county ministerial 
association, recreational and educational gatherings, short 
courses at the college of agriculture, and summer schools 
conducted by denominational boards of home missions. In 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, for example, a thousand 
pastors each year from town and country churches have 
been attending the summer schools conducted by the Board 
of Home Missions and Church Extension. In these schools 
the emphasis in church work is put on service to the local 
community instead of on denominational differences. 
Teachers have their county teachers’ associations, and pas- 
tors have county ministerial associations; but preachers’ 
salaries do not provide for the expense of attending these 
extra meetings. In the two hundred and thirty-two 
churches mentioned above only thirteen per cent of the 
pastors—one in eight—belong to county ministerial asso- 
ciations. Getting away to interdenominational meetings 
broadens one’s vision. 


CoMMUNITY SERVICE 


In removing sectarianism the most important change 
to be made is to put the emphasis on community needs 
instead of on denominational creeds. Creeds are of course 
necessary but they are the religious undergarments and 
should not be worn on the outside, like a coat, all the 
time. Or, to change the figure, our denominational differ- 


110 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


ences should be placed under the altar, where we pray, and 
not at the doorstep, where people enter our church, and 
where outsiders can make remarks. 

In an Oklahoma village were three small competing 
churches. The pastor of one of these organized Boy and 
Girl Scouts and built a hut with them for their meetings. 
He also gave much attention to the week-day activities of 
his church-school classes. Finally, representatives of the 
other two churches in the village came to him and said 
that since he was caring for their young people and their 
boys and girls they would give up their churches and unite 
with him in building just one church in the place. By 
their united efforts they have now completed a thirty thou- 
sand dollar structure, containing a sanctuary, a social hall, 
library, mothers’ room, kindergarten, and rooms for the 
departments in the Sunday school. His service to the 
whole community was the uniting force. 

The churches in a small town in Oregon decided their 
boys and girls needed a daily vacation church school. All 
the children of elementary grades were cared for by one 
denomination, another took ,the juniors, and the third the 
intermediates. 

A Methodist Church in southern Ohio decided to hold a 
big rural-life institute. Representatives of the State Col- 
lege of Agriculture and of the United States Bureau of 
Education were among the speakers. ‘Modern Methods 
in the Sunday School,” “Apple Raising,” “Recreation,” 
and “Roads” were included among the topics for discussion. 
The entire community was invited. The people came. 
This church was not thinking of Methodist roads or Meth- 
odist apples or Methodist schools but was trying to make 
the whole community better. 

A Presbyterian church in Tennessee improved a bad road. 
They did not stop their grading when they were in front 
of a farm owned by a Baptist or a Holy Roller. They were 
rendering a service to the entire community. These 
churches were thinking of the needs of their communities, 
and not of their denominational pride or advantage. We 
get together not by telling how as different denominations 
we love one another but by doing something. together. 
Community-wide gatherings will soon remove sectarianism. 


CHURCHES WORKING TOGETHER 111 


Each winter a group of churches in a New Jersey vil- 
lage conducts a school of methods for their church-school 
teachers. By the union of all denominations in this way 
they improve the quality of their meeting and also give 
the church leaders a chance for cooperation. This type of 
cooperation removes misunderstandings. Two churches in 
a small New York village hold union services every Sunday 
evening. This arrangement gives each pastor two Sundays 
each month for extension work, thus ministering to small 
neglected neighborhoods in their vicinity. 


CuurcH CoNsoLIDATION 


These are days of consolidated schools, farm bureaus, the 
Red Cross, parent-teacher associations, and boys’ and girls’ 
clubs. ‘The churches must come closer together in a larger 
program. ‘The one-room school is changing to the central- 
ized school. The old toll road becomes the State highway. 
The crossroads store gives place to the village department 
store. ‘The country blacksmith shop becomes a garage. 
Likewise, we are facing the movement for the consolida- 
tion of churches. 

When two or more churches in one community turn their 
attention to serving their neighborhood more than to serv- 
ing their denomination they often discover that a consol- 
idation of the churches would help to build up the kingdom 
of God there. Better equipment and better trained teach- 
ers could be provided for the young. A new church with 
rooms for social activities and church-school classes could 
be built. The pastor’s salary could be doubled. He could 
spend all of his time with the one congregation and, by liv- 
ing with his people, could put on a community program. 
_ But how is this consolidation of churches to be effected ? 


UNION CHURCHES 


Organizing a union church has been one method. The 
laymen usually are responsible for this movement. They 
get tired of the sectarian troubles. Or perhaps their 
churches are so small that each denomination finds the 
pastoral support too much of a burden. They throw off 
all denominational connections, employ a pastor from some 
outside denomination, and usually begin what promises 


112 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


to be a hopeful career. But the plan usually fails. When 
their pastor leaves, they have no denominational connec- 
tions from which to get a new man. Neither have they 
any method for their benevolent work or any mission 
boards to call out their spirit of giving and sacrificial 
service. At any rate, union churches usually die. Some- 
times these union churches are named “community 
churches” ; but their future is the same, regardless of their 
name, if they are connected with no outside organization. 


Tuer FEDERATION OF CHURCHES 


Federation, as it is called, is a second method of con- 
solidating churches. ‘Two or more churches unite for 
worship, hire one pastor, meet together for church school, 
but maintain their separate church organizations as before 
and send their benevolences to their respective boards. 
Sometimes their pastor comes from one denomination for 
a definite period; then, for exactly the same length of time, 
from the other denomination. Often they agree to get a 
pastor from a “neutral faith,” with the idea that he shall 
be an impartial referee. There is often the feeling present 
that one group will take advantage of the others, and some 
of the less cooperative members appoint themselves to the 
task of being watchers or guardians over the interests of 
their denomination. This federation of churches has been 
tried in many places and is partially successful; but there 
is often a feeling of suspicion present. It offers a “gentle- 
man’s agreement” rather than a unified force. It is often, 
however, a move in the right direction. 


EXCHANGING CHURCHES 


An exchange of churches, often called “swapping,” is a_ 
third method of consolidating congregations. A weak 
Methodist Church and a stronger Presbyterian Church 
will find themselves occupying the same field. In another 
similar field will be a weak Presbyterian and a stronger 
Methodist Church. The two denominations “swap” their 
weak congregations, all the Methodists joining the Pres- 
byterian Church in the first field, and in the second field 
all uniting in the Methodist Church. In this way the 
total membership of each denomination remains practically 


CHURCHES WORKING TOGETHER 113 


the same. In the first community the Methodists give their 
money to Presbyterian missions and in all respects become 
Presbyterians. This method does not weaken the denom- 
inations nor diminish their benevolences. It doubles the 
salary of two pastors or at least gives them a resident 
pastorate. It removes sectarian jealousies in two com- 
munities and gives to both churches sufficient property to 
become adequately equipped both as to church and _ par- 
sonage. Hach of the two unified churches can put on a 
community-wide program without interference. 

This method of exchanging churches has proved the 
most successful of any in readjusting overchurched com- 
munities. We are all thinking more of bringing the king- 
dom of God to our communities than of exalting our 
denomination and are finding this type of exchanging 
churches a practical way out. 


QUESTIONS FoR DiscussION 


; 1. Why did Jesus want his followers to work as a unified 
orce ? ) 

2. What lessons regarding unification did we learn from 
our allies in the World War? 

3. Why do we have so many denominations in America? 

4, What do you think about the value of debates between 
churches ? 

5. If you moved into a new community and found 
the church there was of another denomination than your 
own, should you join it? 

6. What is the effect of sectarian strife on a neighbor- 
hood ? 

%. Suggest ways of two or more churches in the same 
community becoming more friendly. 

8. What do we mean by churches engaging in com- 
munity service? 

9. Suggest some improvements in this community which 
would be a united task for the churches. 

10. What other rural institutions are consolidating? 

11. Explain how denominations exchange churches. 

12. Suggest an exchange that would improve two com- 

munities with which you are acquainted. 


CHAPTER XII 
OUR CHURCH 


A Country CHURCH 


Atone a beautiful roadside in the midst of a certain 
farming neighborhood stands a country church of which 
all the people in the community are proud. They are 
proud of its history, of its noble sons and daughters, who 
have built the foundations of Christian living within its 
sanctuary and have gone out from its doors to bless the 
world. ‘To it have come the young for their good times, 
their monthly socials, their pageants and plays, their 
organized-class gatherings. In these happy surroundings 
life’s most sacred relationships have been formed, and 
happy homes have started at its altar. Up its aisles have. 
come the aged, the heavy-hearted, many groping for light 
and for pardon, others following with faltering steps and 
broken hearts their lost loved ones. All have been com- 
forted, gladdened, lifted, helped. When they are once 
within its outer doors, the spirit of their Christ enters 
their hearts, and as they look up to his sanctuary they 
are lifted into his presence. This is our church—the 
church we love with all our hearts. This is the organiza- 
tion that is to Christianize all the human relationships of 
our community life. 


ScRIPTURE LESSON 
Luke 4. 16. 
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: 
and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the 
sabbath day, and stood up to read. 


John 2. 13-16. 

13 And the passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus 
went up to Jerusalem. 14 And he found in the temple those 
that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of 
money sitting: 15 and he made a scourge of cords, and cast 
all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he 
poured out the changers’ money, and- overthrew their tables; 

114 


OUR CHURCH | 115 


16 and to them that sold the doves he said, Take these things 
hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise. 
Mark 2. 17. 

And when Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that 
are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are 
sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. 

Matt. 11. 28-30. 

28 Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and 
learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye 
shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, 
and my burden is light. 


My FatuHer’s House 


Over the outer doors of a country church in Maryland 
are the words “My Father’s House.” Within, upon the 
front wall, is the verse: ““Che Lord is in his holy temple: 
let all the earth keep silence before him.” Nearby is 
another motto: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” To the people who 
worship here this is God’s house. Jesus wanted his Father’s 
house to be “a house of prayer for all the nations.” Indig- 
nantly he drove out those who were not there to worship. 
Probably the most violent command he ever uttered was 
“Make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise.” 


A CHURCHLY BUILDING 


Sometimes when we pass a church we wonder whether it 
is a schoolhouse or a grange hall. On the other hand, many 
churches stand like faithful sentinels, pointing all who 
come that way toward heaven. For Christians to get the 
most inspiration from church attendance and for non- 
members to be drawn thither to learn of the joy and peace 
of the spiritual life we must build churchly buildings. 
Some churches give you the impression as soon as you see 
them that they are God’s houses. They have what we call 
a “churchly exterior.’ The church spire, the bell calling 
the worshipers to prayer, the vine-clad walls, the shrub- 
bery around the foundation tying down the church to the 
ground, the well-kept lawn, the Gothic windows, all tell 
you just one thing, and that is that people come here to 
worship. ‘The interior too has a worshipful appearance. 


116 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


The stained-glass windows shut out the outside world. 
The altar calls you back to God. The house is clean, well- 
ventilated, and comfortably heated. 

In a backward, hilly Pennsylvania community, with no 
lighting conveniences, the little country church was the 
first buildmg in which a Delco lighting system was 
installed. Before a half dozen years passed, fifty farm 
homes in that parish had put in such lights. But there 
are other communities where God’s house seems to be the 
last one to be improved. Homes are painted, but the 
church has the appearance of a deserted house. Improved 
heating systems are put into the schoolhouse, the banks, 
and stores; but the old stove stays in the church. It was 
a great disappointment one evening, on riding out to a 
country church in Delaware with the pastor in his beauti- 
ful sedan automobile, to find smoky oil lamps in an 
unpainted building. The religious life of such a congre- 
gation must also be dim. 

Sometimes a church building is neglected because there 
is no person or organization responsible for keeping it in 
shape. A Mississippi church built twenty years ago had 
never been painted, and apparently the windows had never 
been washed. “Not much of a house of prayer,” you say; 
yet when the suggestion was made that a day be set aside 


for cleaning and improving the church, the people accepted — 
it gladly and were happy in doing the work. A leader was — 


all that was needed. 


THe CHuRCH YARD 


The Galilean farmers and fisher folk, who went up with — 
Jesus and his family to Jerusalem to worship, were greatly 


inspired by the sight of the Temple. Jesus’ disciples called 
attention to its beauty as they looked at it from the top of 
the Mount of Olives. When we build a church to-day we 
try to surround it with beauty and with the spirit of wor- 
ship. Unattractive church buildings help to make the 


. 
| 


gospel uninviting. Look at this Nebraska village. The 


people of the village built their church, a one-roomed struc- 
ture, on an unsightly hill because they could buy the lots 
cheap there; and the parsonage was built on a low, swampy 


place, because someone gave them the land. Perhaps the 


| 
} 
; 


4 
d 


| 


OUR CHURCH 117 


owner had tried to sell these lots and had failed. It almost 
seems that they had made their “Father’s house a house of 
merchandise.” 

A country-life institute was being held in a rural church 
in West Virginia recently. Questions were asked about 
the schools, the church, and the farms. Many of the mem- 
bers owned pure-bred hogs and cattle. They looked down 
on farmers who owned nothing but scrubs. They also dis- 
cussed the growth of their church and found they had 
hardly as many members as ten years before. The church 
house had been built back in the sixties and had not been 
improved since. It showed no signs of paint. Several 
windows were broken. No shrubbery or vines softened the 
outlines of the building. The walks were aged. The 
adjoining cemetery was hid among weeds. It is hard to 
‘explain why good farmers will have pure-bred cattle and 
scrub churches, Contrasted with this West Virginia com- 
munity are a hundred or a thousand others where the 
church yard, like the Temple in Jerusalem, is the most 
beautiful place in town and the place to which all are 
glad to come. 


A TRAINING STATION 


People who migrate to our country from a foreign land 
need to be trained in citizenship. We say we “American- 
ize” them. Likewise, those who are born here need to be 
taught how to become good citizens. This citizenship 
training is one of the great tasks of the schools. The 
churches also have the important task of training the 
youth of the land to become good citizens in the kingdom 
of our Lord, in which good will, love, and service rule. 
This desire to nurture the youth in Christ affects the 
church-school rooms and equipment as well as the workers 
selected. An Oklahoma congregation with a little one- 
room church was trying to care for a dozen Sunday-school 
classes in this one room. Jesus said, “Suffer the little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” It would 
be rather difficult for the children in this poorly equipped 
Sunday school to find their Lord or to learn much about 
him. The noise and confusion when a dozen classes were 
meeting in the same room would “forbid them” from find- 


118 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


ing their Lord. But the members united with the “out- 
siders” in building a modern church, with a room for each 
department of the church school. They also built a church 
auditorium and a social hall equipped with a stereopticon. 
The members worked together on the new church and 
learned religious truths while shingling the roof as well 
as while sitting in the pews. So much community spirit 
was developed that the whole community went out one day 
and cleaned up the cemetery. The building of a new 
church building sometimes helps to revive the church 
membership as much as the coming of an evangelist does. 


GIVE THE TEACHERS A CHANCE 


A church with adequate rooms for its church-school 
classes gives its teachers a better chance. In a small village 
in central Pennsylvania a church well equipped for church- 
school work always sent its pastors away with a reputation 
for skillful work in religious education. One became the 
representative of the Board of Sunday Schools (now the 
Board of Education) in his area. One of the young women 
in this church became so well equipped in all phases of reli- 
gious education that she was selected by the Board of Home 
Missions to teach in summer schools for rural pastors 
throughout the country. No one knows how many other 


communities could furnish as many national leaders if | 


their church only gave them a chance for development. 


THE WORKERS 


If our church is to Christianize all the human relation- 
ships of our community life, we must help the workers to 
become efficient. The principal denominations have built 
up great schools and departments of religious education 
to prepare men and women to teach religion, to supervise 
the work of the church school, to become directors of reli- 
gious education. Likewise, the boards of the church have 
established training schools for pastors to help them to 
use the most successful and modern methods of church 
work. There are many ways by which each community 
can help its pastor to become most successful.. For one 
thing, we can provide a comfortable and convenient 
parsonage. : 


OUR CHURCH | 119 


THE PARSONAGE 


In northern New York State is a minister who has 
gained a reputation for being a crank about fixing up the 
parsonage. Before he has been in a place very long, the 
people have installed in the parsonage all the labor-saving 
machinery they can buy—electric washer, vacuum cleaner, 
running water—in fact, it is made into a model house, 
modern in every way. They plant around it shade trees 
and fruit trees, berries and vines. A certain Virginia 
parsonage is so beautiful, its flowers and lawn so well kept, 
that commercial photographers have made picture post 
cards of it and keep them on sale as an advertisement of 
the town. 

THE SALARIES 


The teacher who trains in citizenship and the pastor 
who trains us in Christian living are our community’s 
greatest assets. ‘To them we owe our ideals, our progress, 
our faith, our hope for the future. To make these com- 
munity leaders more efficient we must provide them with 
sufficient salaries. Not only is the attitude of a community 
toward God’s house a test of its religious life, but also its 
attitude toward its pastor, On the Hudson River is a 
church of wealthy members who were seeking a minister. 
They stipulated the type of a man they must have—“a 
graduate of college and seminary,” “a good preacher,” 
“should have an automobile,” “must be a good mixer”; 
yet the salary they proposed to pay him was about the same 
as these members paid their stenographers—about one 
tenth as much as they paid the managers of their busi- 
nesses. It would look as if they thought their religion was 
only one tenth as important as the copper they dug from 
their mines or the sugar they sold in their stores. 

Yet there are many other churches like the one in Ken- 
tucky which sends its pastor away each year to attend 
institutes and conventions “so that he will be up to date.” 
They plan that he shall have enough salary to educate his 
children well. 

At a rural-life institute in a small village the question of 
pastors’ salaries was being discussed. Two churches were 
represented. 


120 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


“What salaries do you pay your pastors?” they were 
asked. | 

““We pay ours fifteen hundred dollars a year,” one person 
replied. Another said: “We pay ours eighteen hundred 
dollars. We usually pay the same amount in each church. 
We made a mistake this year when we raised our pastor’s 
salary from fifteen to eighteen hundred dollars.” 

“What was the mistake? How did it happen?” 

‘“‘We intended to pay the same as the other church. We 
heard that they had raised their amount, so we increased 
ours. Later we found the rumor about their salary was a 
mistake, but it was too late for us to go back to fifteen 
hundred dollars then.” 

“What do you pay your teachers in the high school ?” 
was the next question. 

“Two thousand dollars a year.” 

“Have they spent more time and money on their educa- 
tion than your pastors have?” 

“No, not as much. Our high-school teachers are college 
graduates; our pastors spent three years in a seminary 
after they were graduated from college.” 

“Do your teachers work more months in the year than 
your pastors?” 

““No, they work nine months, and our pastors eleven.” 

They excused the salaries they paid by saying that min- 
isters are “called of the Lord” to preach. Fortunately 
this is true, but our same Lord is calling the laymen to 
provide proper financial support for the ministry. Our 
chief business is to Christianize all our human relation- 
ships. One way to do this is by making our pastors more 
efficient and by dignifying their calling through business- 
like financial methods. A bank would not increase the 
number of its depositors by advertising an ice-cream supper 
in the basement of the bank building to “help make up the 
cashier’s back salary.” 


Tur CHurRCH PROGRAM 


Most churches want to follow modern methods in all 
their work, but they are sometimes afraid to try new ways. 
A Texas church had raised its budget for twenty-five years 
in the same way—the old subscription paper. The man 


OUR CHURCH 121 


who gave the most put his name at the top of the sheet. 
The woman who was the next best giver then wrote her 
name, and so on. This church was on a four-point circuit. 
This one church had paid about the same—two hundred 
and fifty dollars—for the last twenty-five years. But in 
the meantime land had increased from twenty to a hun- 
dred dollars an acre. New homes had been built. Tele- 
phones and automobiles had changed the life of the com- 
munity. A local bank had been organized in which all 
the stock had been subscribed by local people in one after- 
noon. The teachers gave all of their time to this com- 
munity, likewise the banker and the postmaster. But the 
minister gave only a fourth of his time here. The other 
people received their salary each month, but the church 
committee “went around” and “made up” the preacher’s 
salary at the end of the year. To this church was pro- 
posed the budget system and the every-member canvass. 
They should plan their expenses ahead and put it all in 
one budget, they were told. They should ask each man 
and woman, boy and girl to make his pledge separately, 
and pay by the week. And then they should get a pastor 
to live in the community and give all of his time to the 
one place. Their pride in their church and their deep 
interest in Christianizing their community life were 
aroused, and they all agreed to the new plan—all except 
the old man who had put his name at the top of the sub- 
scription paper for so long. And after he saw the new 
plan working he too was converted. 

A church in southwestern Iowa makes out its year’s 
calendar of activities, prints them ahead of time, and fol- 
lows them more accurately than its railroad follows its 
printed time table. Modern colleges have a printed cat- 
alogue, and churches are likewise printing their yearly 
programs. 

An Ohio church made a map of its community on which 
was indicated the location of all homes. Colors were 
used to indicate the homes of church members, a color for 
each denomination in the community. Homes of non- 
church members were left uncolored. This map was hung 
up in the young people’s room. It visualized their task of 
getting new members. As the people joined that church, 


122 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


the colors on the map were filled in. Many churches use 
similar methods for locating their field for evangelistic 
efforts. 

Wherever a church is putting on a successful program, 
people sooner or later are attracted to it. They prefer a 
movement to a monument. They like to be affiliated with 
a going concern. 

A stranger in a village in northwestern Pennsylvania 
asked a young man what there was to go to around there. 
“We go to the movies in a town ten miles down the pike,” 
he said, “and we often go to a church eight miles over the 
hill.” 

“Why go so far to church when you have three churches 
here in the village?” 

“The one over there has something going on most of the 
time.” 

Let us make our church such that the people who come 
within its walls will meet our Lord. It is God’s house and 
deserves our best thought and care, our deepest love and 
affection. It is the one institution in our community 
which has for its objective the putting of the spirit of the 
Christ into our home life and into our business and neigh- 
borhood activities. 


QUESTIONS FOR DIscUSSION 


1. A church in northeastern Ohio cost one thousand 
dollars, while one tombstone in the adjoining cemetery cost 
eighteen hundred dollars, and another twenty-four hundred 
dollars. The caretaker of the cemetery received the same 
salary as this church paid its pastor. What can you say 
about this church’s ideals? 

2. A New Jersey town has a more beautiful public 
library building than a church. Does it think of its 
church as God’s house? What is wrong? 

3. Whose fault is it when a minister can’t pay his 
grocery bill? 

4. Why do ministers stay such a short time at some 
churches ? 

5. A Montana pastor was trying to get a system of run- 
ning water installed in the parsonage. One member of the 


OUR CHURCH | 123 


official board objected, saying he did not have running 
water in his house. What should the pastor have done? 

6. A bank that advertised an ice-cream supper in the 
basement to help pay the cashier’s salary probably would 
go bankrupt. How does it affect the attitude of a com- 
munity toward a church when it runs its finances in such 
an unbusinesslike manner ? 

%?. God grades the pupils of the church school: Why 
do we not give them graded lessons? | 

8. What are the reasons for a country church having a 
pastor live in the community and give all of his time to 
the one parish? | 


CHAPTER XIII 
WORLD NEIGHBORS 


WHEN stagecoaches traveling between New York City 
and Philadelphia stopped for the night at a certain little 
New Jersey town, the villagers gathered around the drivers 
in the big barn to discuss the happenings in the outside 
world. Until late at night they sat by the log fire in the 
inn, listening to the travelers’ tales. Long since, railways 
and State roads have stopped the daily journeys of the old 
stagecoach. ‘Telephones, daily papers, and radios bring 
the news to the little Jersey town more quickly than the 
travelers at the ancient inn. The old barn to which the 
villagers came to get the world news has recently been 
bought by the local Methodist Church and fitted up for a 
community hall. A large lot near the barn now owned by 
the church is used as a parking place for the automobiles 
of people who come here to attend community meetings. 
This rural center is now a place that has happenings of 
its own to tell. Its events, its ideals, its standard of living, 
the food from its farms, the teachers and ministers it sends 
out—its entire life affects the big world that once seemed 
so strange and so far away. This is one of many rural 
communities, once provincial and backward, which now, 
because of changed conditions, are influencing daily and 
even hourly the complex world around them. 

If our rural communities are centers of righteousness, 
we will become a righteous nation. Jesus said that good 
trees must bring forth good fruit. Although American 
cities have grown rapidly, the foundation of our nation’s 
moral and religious life still rests upon the farm home. 
It is important that this foundation shall be built upon a 
rock. A small country church faithfully teaching religion 
to its youth may have much to discourage it, but it is mak- 
ing possible a more righteous city and a more righteous 
nation. Rural religion is the leaven for the religious life 
of our State and nation. 

124 





WORLD NEIGHBORS 125 


SCRIPTURE LESSON 


Luke 13. 18-21; 6. 43-49. 


18 He said therefore, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? 
and whereunto shall I liken it? 19 It is like unto a grain of 
mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his own 
garden; and it grew, and became a tree; and the birds of the 
heaven lodged in the branches thereof. 

20 And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom 
of God? 21 It is like unto leaven, which a woman took and 
hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened. 

43 For there is no good tree that bringeth forth corrupt 
fruit; nor again a corrupt tree that bringeth forth good fruit. 
44 For each tree is known by its own fruit. For of thorns men 
do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. 
45 The good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth 
forth that which is good; and the evil man out of the evil 
treasure bringeth forth that which is evil: for out of the 
abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. 

46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things 
which I say? 47 Every one that cometh unto me, and heareth 
my words, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is 
like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who digged and 
went deep, and laid a foundation upon the rock: and when 
a flood arose, the stream brake against that house, and could 
not shake it: because it had been well builded. 49 But he 
that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that built a house 
upon the earth without a foundation; against which the stream 
brake, and straightway it fell in; and the ruin of that house 
was great. 


Worutp ConTACTS AND WorupD NEIGHBORS 


We need not go back in memory so many years to recall 
those visits to the county seat which came only once a year. 
Many farm women then spent an entire day at the county 
fair, seeing scarcely anyone they knew. Finally, the mail 
routes penetrated rural America, and daily papers were 
seen in nearly every home. Farmers who meet at the end 
of the corn row now talk about a new European premier 
as readily as they once discussed family aches and pains. 
The rural free delivery and the consolidated school helped 
the good-roads movement. Then came the automobiles, 
which broke down the old neighborhood boundaries and 
made the county one big neighborhood. 

Six typical counties in New York State were selected, 
and for two days during the month of August the traffic 


126 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


was studied on certain roads. For the years 1909, 1914, 
1916, 1919, 1920, and 1922 the motor vehicles passing the 
same six points increased as follows: 459, 1,904, 4,039, 
8,073, 10,522, 10,854—an increase in thirteen years of 
2,400 per cent. Only 16 per cent of the number of horses 
traveled over these roads in 1922 as in 1909. In 1909 
there were 126,593 automobiles manufactured in the 
United States; in 1919, ten years later, there were 1,683,- 
916 manufactured—an increase of 1,400 per cent. With 
population increasing at about 1 per cent a year the num- 
ber of licensed automobiles in New York State has 
increased over the previous year at the average rate of 23 
per cent a year since 1915. 

These facts are familiar to all, but we still want it 
proved to us that the small neighborhood boundary has 
given place to the larger area. Let us take the farm bureau 
as one county movement that has broken down small 
neighborhood lines. On March 20, 1911, John H. Barron, 
a Cornell graduate, became the first farm-bureau agent 
in the Unitec States. Farmers’ cooperative demonstration 
work had been begun in the South as early as 1903; but 
Broome County, New York, had the first county-farm- 
bureau representative in 1911. By 1918 there were more 
than three thousand county agents. The number fell off 
slightly at the close of the war, but is now on the increase ; 
and to-day 2,436 counties are organized, so far as agricul- 
tural education is concerned, on the county basis—that is, 
* with county agricultural agents. The same thing is true 
of the home bureaus. F'arm women have their community 
units, but the county basis is observed as far as organization 
is concerned. This means that farm women not only are 
acquainted with women throughout the county but work 
with them throughout the year on such questions as 
nutrition, clothing, health, child welfare, and recreation. 
They meet regularly at the county seat for classes and dis- 
cussion. A million farmers and their families are think- 
ing of their work-day problems on a county-wide basis. 

The president of the United States Chamber of Com- 
merce expresses surprise and regret that there should be 
an agricultural bloc, although his own organization has 
been functioning in that capacity for the cities for years. 





WORLD NEIGHBORS 127 


Thus, we see on every side the growing importance and 
influence of agriculture. 

A California farmer was the originator of the plan for 
an International Institute of Agriculture. While this 
chapter is being written, this international organization is 
holding its seventh biennial session in Rome. Represented 
at this conference are sixty-two governments, comprising 
ninety-six per cent of the world’s area and ninety-seven 
per cent of its population. The United States secretary 
of agriculture points out that it is possible for the farmers 
in lowa, Minnesota, or Idaho to receive before night the 
crop report transmitted from Argentina in the morning 
to this institute and thence distributed. This meeting in 
Italy calls our attention to the fact that all the farmers of 
the earth and the millions of people who depend on them 
for food are interdependent. We are now in reality world 
neighbors. Let us see how our religion must guide us in 
our new world-wide relationships. 


THE FARMER’S SERVICE 


The first principle of the followers of our Lord is to 
serve one’s fellow men. ‘The farmer serves his world neigh- 
bors by raising food, just as the minister or teacher serves 
by conducting an orphanage in a foreign-mission land. 
One third of all our exports are food products. The man 
who raises the wheat for the Armenian refugees is ren- 
dering his service to the world the same as the missionary 
who distributes the loaf of bread. If raising the world’s 
food is a Christian service, wasting it is immoral. A 
lazy farmer is not a good Christian. If I let the weeds 
take my crops I am violating the Christian principle of 
service. For example, the United States Bureau of Plant 
Industry tells us that the black-stem rust in the years 1919 
to 1921 caused losses in our seven principal wheat-growing 
_ States of more than two hundred million dollars—an 
_ amount larger than the total expenditure for foreign mis- 
sions of all denominations for those three years. Waste of 

this kind is immoral when children are starving. 

_ In the course of an address to the delegates of the Mani- 
toba Agricultural Society, President Bracken, of the 


128 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


Manitoba Agricultural College, made the following sig- 
nificant observations: 

“Weeds caused us twice as much loss last year as we pay 
to maintain the provincial government; stem rusts of 
wheat take a greater toll in some years than the highest 
tariff ever put on by a protectionist government; the losses 
caused by insects each year, if prevented, would more than 
offset the loss from increased freight; the waste in har- 
vesting, threshing, handling, and transporting screenings, 
if prevented, would save enough to more than pay the cost 
of running the agricultural college.” 

The year book of the United States Department of 
Agriculture says: 

“The farmer is needlessly reducing his crop yield by 
growing harmful weeds, the yield being reduced 10 per 
cent in corn, 9 per cent in tame hay, 8 per cent in potatoes, 
13 per cent in spring wheat, 7 per cent in winter wheat, and 
27 per cent in pasture. The preventable leak from this one 
source runs well over a billion dollars a year.” 

Since the farmer serves his fellow men by providing 
food for the world, waste is therefore immoral. In dis- 
cussing a certain export bill a well-known agricultural 
paper has this drastic statement: 

“Tf the export bill fails to pass, there is but one effective 
answer—cut wheat, hog, and corn production so that there 
is no surplus to export. This is a brutal thing; it means 
the death of millions of Europeans as a result of disease 
following on undernourishment. But there is no alter- 
native.” 

This un-Christian exhortation must be answered in a 
different spirit. No Christian farmer can live up to New 
Testament ideals and carry out this editor’s advice to 
limit production to the point of starving “millions of Euro- 
peans.” Not by limiting production but by improving 
world marketing facilities will we solve our international 
economic difficulties. It is important that we keep before 
us this spirit of service as we try to solve our international 
agricultural problems. 


UNSELFISH COOPERATION 
Two attitudes toward cooperative marketing are held in 


WORLD NEIGHBORS 129 


agricultural groups to-day—a selfish attitude and an 
unselfish one. The first is a class-conscious hatred toward 
middlemen, spurred on by hard times and guided by pro- 
fessional organizers. Farmers are told by these high- 
salaried promoters to limit production, to get a monopoly 
on the market, to charge a higher price and give less serv- 
ice. The other attitude—the unselfish one—is that coop- 
eration is a method of rendering a service. This group 
teaches that we can put our farm produce on the market 
more efficiently by working together. This type of coop- 
eration developed at first around local shipping points. 
Ten to fifty persons with common problems found by 
working together they could solve their marketing diffi- 
culty. If there was no satisfactory local market for their 
livestock they pooled their interests and shipped in car- 
load lots to a distant market. If freight rates did not 
allow them to ship fluid milk, they built a cooperative 
creamery or a butter factory. Cooperation is thus put 
upon a service basis. When these ten to fifty cooperators 
found another group with the same ideals they naturally 
joined hands with them, and the federated type of coopera- 
tive organization grew up. There are now nine thousand 
active cooperative organizations among American farm- 
ers. Last year they did nearly two billion dollars’ worth 
of business. ‘The service these cooperative organizations 
render is the standardization and grading of produce, 
storing and putting it on the market in a steady stream, 
rather than glutting the market and arranging less expen- 
sive cooperative credit. Every fruit farmer who raises 
Sunkist oranges or Sun-Maid raisins has many things in 
common with other farmers raising the same product. He 
follows the same standard of handling and grading. He 
shares with him transportation and shipping expenses. 
Farmers who live a hundred miles apart, who have never 
seen one another, are thus loyal and true to each other. 
They assume common obligations at the bank and in truth 
are business neighbors. Thus we see how the community 
boundaries are extending through commodity marketing 
organizations. The term “world neighbors” is becoming 
a reality. During these days of economic stress and strain 
our rural religion is needed to keep us true to our coop- 


130 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


erative obligations, to keep the service ideal uppermost in 
our marketing, and to prevent hatred and revenge from 
creeping into our large cooperative associations. 


Farm CooPERATION REQUIRES HONESTY 


If two men own and operate a threshing machine 
together they must be honest in order to get along with 
each other. The Dairymen’s League Cooperative Associa- 
tion owns 151 plants valued at six million dollars. The 
sixty-five thousand farmers in this organization must be 
just as honest with each other if this partnership is to be 
effective. Christian ideals are needed to-day more than 
ever. It is easy to be honest when we have daily contacts 
with our cooperators, but it 1s even more necessary to have 
strict honesty and loyalty when we seldom see those with 
whom we are cooperating. A dairy farmer may think his 
unsanitary milk won’t make any difference, the fruit 
farmer may slip in some small-sized apples, the wheat 
raiser may fill in with wet wheat; yet it is strict honesty 
in making standards and grades which makes for our 
produce a reliable market. ‘We thus see that Christian 
principles are necessary for solving most of our economic 
problems. It takes an honest Christian to maintain a 
brand of farm products. The New Testament standards 
are necessary to make large agricultural cooperatives a 
success. The religion of the pioneer might be a Sunday 
affair, but the modern farmer must have the principles of 
Jesus in all his daily business contacts. As life becomes 
more complex, more depends on the sincerity and honesty 
of the members of the group. 


AMERICAN AGRICULTURE RAISES THE STANDARD OF LIVING 
ABROAD 


One of the principal tasks of foreign missionaries is to 
raise the standard of living throughout the world. They 
establish industrial schools as well as distribute Gospels. 
They teach sanitation as well as visit the sick. They heal 
as well as evangelize. Agricultural missions are the newest 
venture of our benevolent boards. They carry not only the 
gospel but our standard of living. Students from abroad 
are coming to this country in great numbers to study in 


WORLD NEIGHBORS 131 


our schools and take back our standards. This all means 
that the standard of living in our American farm homes 
affects the life in foreign lands. In Russia, India, and 
China four persons out of five live on the land and make 
their living directly from farming. ‘Three fourths of the 
world’s population are engaged in agricultural occupations. 
President Butterfield of the Massachusetts College of 
Agriculture estimates that there are not less than one bil- 
lion rural folk in the world. This vast agricultural popu- 
lation is being influenced by our American farm home. 
The fact that our girls are studying home economics 
by the thousands in our State colleges of agriculture, many 
of them going out to teach “better home life,” is sure to 
affect the position that women and children hold in non- 
Christian lands. Many diseases are rural, such as malaria, 
yellow fever, typhus, and hookworm. As we learn to 
fight these toll takers of human life in rural America 
we shall rapidly pass on the information to less-favored 
lands. Likewise, so long as we spend two hundred mil- 
lion dollars a year on patent medicines we need not be 
surprised at quacks and “cures” in non-Christian coun- 
tries. Neither should we be amazed at the lack of schools 
abroad when our own need so much improvement, and 
while our women spend as much money on cosmetics each 
year as the total expenditure for our public schools. Twice 
as much money is spent in America for tobacco as is spent 
for education. Yet these useless articles are being exported 
along with our Bibles and our missionaries. Our standard 
of living, good or bad, affects the life of all our world 
neighbors. As we work for improvement in our own 
communities let us remember the mustard seed in the 
parable which “groweth up and becometh greater than all 
the herbs.” Thus the kingdom of God spreads. 
Prohibition was first sponsored by our rural people. 
During those early days of its unpopularity the farmer 
vote could be depended on. It was always “dry.” Now 
the movement for national prohibition has spread to a 
dozen foreign countries, and we have hopes of a “dry” 
world. The little leaven is doing its work. Our opposi- 
tion to child labor has had its effect likewise in other coun- 
tries. Japan, Czecho-Slovakia, Esthonia, and Sweden have 


132 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


recently enacted preventive legislation. If our Amer- 
ican farm life is righteous, if our American farm homes 
are built on the solid rock of religious living, they will 
stand like the house in the parable. The influence of the 
leaven of Christianity must reach all of life and every life. 


WorLD BROTHERHOOD 


“World brotherhood” is one of the phrases that help 
us to understand better the coming of the kingdom of 
God. But this world brotherhood, in which we have one 
Father and in which we treat every other man as a brother, 
is not a theological phrase to be debated; it is something 
to be lived daily. World brotherhood is a sum total of 
community attitudes. Read the following letter from a 
resident of Bangalore, India, and see how our attitude 
toward our world neighbors determines this whole question 
of the brotherhood of nations: 


“Editor, the Christian Century: Sir: A few months back I 
went to America. I traveled only in the Eastern and the 
Northern States and in parts of the Middle West, making a 
railway journey of over three thousand miles. I may there- 
fore claim to have got some idea of the American ideal of 
fellowship and brotherhood and just dealing between man and 
man, as actually practiced in your country. Americans have 
a natural hatred for the Negroes, and it may be stated as a 
common fact that the average Americans at first sight take 
the Indians to be Negroes, and they are treated in the same 
way. An Indian must call himself a Hindu, be he a Hindu, 
Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist, or of any other religious 
denomination. In many places, although I traveled with a 
turban on just to indicate that I was an Indian Hindu (and 
to my regret I could not put a poster on my forehead or on 
my back to indicate my nationality), I was no better than 
a hated Negro in the eyes of Americans, whose fellow citizens 
are now trying to teach us in our country brotherliness and 
just dealing between man and man. In Washington, the capi- 
tal of the federal government and within a few hundred yards 
of the Capitol—the meeting place of the two houses of Con- 
gress of the most democratic republic in the world—I was 
refused food in public restaurants owned by white people. In 
other towns even in the North the same fate awaited me. I 
tried in not less than a dozen barber shops in the towns of 
Detroit. Buffalo, and Niagara Falls to get my hair cropped; 
but not a single white barber would touch the hair of my 
head. Away from some big cities, such as New York, Chicago, 
Boston, etc., people would not sit near me, either in railways 


WORLD NEIGHBORS 133 


er in street cars, if they could help it. It was difficult to 
get accommodation in hotels. I am sorry to say that even 
some of the Young Men’s Christian Associations did not hesi- 
tate to show their color prejudices by refusing accommoda- 
tion. When I expressed my intention of visiting Birmingham, 
in the South, I was told by the American Express Company 
of New York that I could not get a sleeping-car compartment 
in the train, as the well-known Pullman Company would 
not sell tickets for a sleeper to a colored man in the Southern 
States! nor could the Express Company get for me any hotel 
accommodation in that part for the same reason. Of course, 
those who are stationed in one place may get known and may 
not have such bitter experience. But a country is generally 
judged by the treatment meted out to strangers, for real 
politeness and courtesy are always appreciated and recognized 
when they are extended to strangers. I must admit, wherever 
I went with letters of introduction I was very well treated, 
but this may be said to be confined only to those who happened 
to come to know me and to know something about India and 
Hindus. The treatment I received in the various countries 
in Europe, when traveling there, is just the reverse. The 
contrast is so clear and noticeable. I do not want to go into the 
details of my good experience about the industrial, commercial, 
educational, and various other activities in America, for which 
I have great admiration. America is going ahead of many 
other countries in these respects. But I would only tell our 
American missionaries in India when they want to preach to 
us about brotherliness, just dealing between man and man, 
and so on, ‘Halt; physician, heal thyself!’ We want the 
almighty dollars of America—and she has plenty of them— 
for use in India for education, sanitation, and other philan- 
thropic and humanitarian works which are urgently needed 
in this country; and we may very well do with missionaries 
for this class of work and we shall be thankful and grateful 
to them for their services. But when they want to teach 
us about dealing between man and man, it would be far 
better for these missionaries of religion to return to their 
own land and turn their attention toward their own country 
people—men and women—and educate them about this ideal- 
ism and brotherliness and as to how to treat the colored peo- 
ple in their own country, so that real Christian fellowship and 
brotherliness might be fostered and practiced there. 
“Bangalore, India. A ee 


We can have a League of Nations when we have a 
friendly attitude toward our next-door neighbor. We can 
have a world court to settle disputes openly and peaceably 
when we substitute orderly legal proceedings at home for 
lynching parties and other types of invisible government. 


134 A CHRISTIAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE 


We cannot cleanse our national politics as long as we let 
the sinners go to the polls in our home township, and the 
righteous simply hold an indignation meeting after the 
election. We must teach religion in our homes and prac- 
tice it in our everyday life, in business, in voting, in our 
cooperatives, and in our church. Like the leaven in the 
meal Christian ideals and standards will eventually but 
surely reach the farthest home in a foreign land and influ- 
ence the most remote recesses of a needy world. 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 


1. What new things to put them in touch with the out- 
side world do most communities have which they didn’t 
have fifty years ago? 

2. How have these improvements enlarged our com- 
munities and increased our “neighbors” ? 

3. What county organizations do farm people now have 
for both men and women which we did not have fifteen 
years ago? 

4. What is the International Institute of Agriculture? 

5. Discuss the ways in which the farmer renders service 
to the world. 

6. What do you think about the advice to limit output 
even though it means “the death of millions” ? 

%. Why do we need religious principles in our present 
farm cooperative movement ? 

8. Can a Christian farmer encourage a spirit of hatred 
toward middlemen ? 

9. How do American farm homes influence home life 
in non-Christian lands? 

10. How would you answer the letter of the man from 
India? 

11. What do you mean by everyday religion ? 












unis 











* 
\ 


A an 


a 


het 


oe 


owy 








Ty) La aN i 
ML Na 
ein tah \! 





i ii 


01575 3405 


ie Pte f i : a q 
: hse Ay Hy 
rye te r s * 
Ly ‘ . Phd ey he BA 
‘ Fs ; ae 
id P " wie) us 


Lh ty \ 4 
ath eal [ 





t » Th he ; f 
bis ia C) x " ‘ > h j 4 ¥ 
Ww 7 hi; | eh am i 

TRA a at Wc ue hl ar 
AL es Cee maT: ans 
TO bal hae he ee j ti 
a Vile M 7 My i all 
Vr ae Ra ssh 
ae wh el i 
' > A ae i 





‘ « 5 
: ae fal 
1 Ore, im 
Oe ae 
y i 


' WY 





oe 


ripe Loe 
Sere Se ar ord 
ea aa ewan Sk MEN, ee 


a nies 


= petit pera - ow See 
pe eet a : Se 
eee Tae ie 


cs 





